Terms of Address: Problems of Patterns and Usage in Various Languages and Cultures 9783110848113, 9783110115482

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
1. Introduction: The Kiel research project
2. Aspects of address theory
3. Methodological considerations
4. Two topics of address in interlingual perspective
5. Publications on forms of address
References
Supplement to Braun/Kohz/Schubert (1986): Bibliography, part II
Index

Citation preview

Terms of Address

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

50

Editor

Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

Terms of Address Problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures

by

Friederike Braun

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam 1988

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Braun, Friederike. Terms of address : problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures / by Friederike Braun, xiv, 374 p. cm. - (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 50) Bibliography : p. 313 Includes index. ISBN 0-89925-432-2 (alk. paper) 1. Forms of address. 2. Sociolinguistics. I. Title. II. Series. P40.5.F67B7 1988 4 0 1 ' . 9 - d e 19

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging in Publication Data Braun, Friederike: Terms of address : problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures / by Friederike Braun. - Berlin ; New York ; Amsterdam : Mouton de Gruyter, 1988 (Contributions to the sociology of language ; SO)

ISBN 3-11-011548-4 NE: GT

Printed on acid free paper.

© Copyright 1988 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 30. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form - by photoprint, microfilm or any other means nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from the publishers. Typesetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong. - Printing: Ratzlow-Druck, Berlin. Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. - Printed in Germany.

Preface

The present volume was actually planned as the conclusion of a research project dealing with address behavior in various languages (the project is described in section 1 ). It was not intended to give an overview of the literature on forms of address, since a bibliography on this subject had already been compiled (Braun/Kohz/ Schubert 1986). This is one of the reasons why literature on forms of address is not here extensively cited. Moreover, some of the phenomena mentioned are well-known and have been referred to so frequently that it would have been impossible to give an exhaustive account of the respective literature anyway. In these cases, only one, or just a few, works will be cited as representatives of the bulk of material available. Further references can easily be obtained from the aforementioned bibliography with the help of its subject index. Instead of summarizing once again what is common knowledge in the field of address, emphasis is put here on making use of, presenting, and interpreting the data we have collected. An appendix to the list of references, however, will supply those titles which were gathered after the manuscript of the abovementioned bibliography was finished. The appendix can thus be viewed as an extension of Braun/Kohz/Schubert (1986). Forms of address are transcribed, if necessary, according to the IPA system,1 if not otherwise noted. But when examples are taken from other publications, the respective authors' transcription will not be altered, even if it is different from ours. With regard to Arabic forms, my present transcription may deviate a little from the transcription used in former publications (Braun 1984c, 1985), because it has been adapted to the pronunciation of the majority of informants interviewed in the meantime. Alternative pronunciations (transcriptions) will be added. Part 1 below is a description of our research project, its aims, its

1. Russian forms are transliterated.

vi

Preface

objects, its "history," the staff, and the publications. Aspects of the theory of address will be dealt with in part 2. This part, however, does not provide a coherent theory of its own. Only some special points of interest are taken up: After presenting basic concepts and terminology (terms and definitions we found to be useful, 2.0), the best-known publications on theory of address are critically treated on the basis of our experiences, and some modifications are suggested (2.1 and 2.2). Section 2.3 is a discussion of the notion of politeness and of linguistic markers of politeness in forms of address. Section 2.4 briefly touches upon the possible effects of address systems on speakers' perception of social relationships. Methodological issues are considered in part 3. The advantages and disadvantages of the methodological approach used in our project, interviewing informants with the help of a questionnaire, are summarized in 3.1. Two reports, on Portuguese (3.2.1) and Georgian address behavior (3.2.2), illustrate the results obtainable in one or two interviews for a given language. Section 3.3 treats the validity of data obtained from a single informant as compared to those of a group. 3.4.1 is a reprint of the questionnaire employed, to which comments are added in 3.4.2. Part 4 contains two issues of address considered from an interlingual point of view on the basis of our own data as well as of other publications. Our experience in collecting literature on forms of address is summarized in part 5 with regard to the question where to look for information on address behavior in all kinds of languages. The list of references names only those sources which were cited or consulted fo the present purposes (otherwise cf. Braun/Kohz/ Schubert 1986). Finally I would like to express my gratitude to Werner Winter for his guidance and support in the project as well as for his help in writing the present conclusion. I would further like to thank my colleagues Armin Kohz, Zsuzsanna Bényei, and, above all, Klaus Schubert who contributed section 3.2.2 on forms of address in Georgian and was co-author of section 2.3 on politeness. Since this is a description of what all of us have been occupied with over a couple of years, it is obvious that they have a substantial share in the findings and conclusions presented. Nevertheless, the views as put forward here are my responsibility. I am grateful to Richard Dölling for his patience and detective-like skill in procuring the literature as well as for inspiring discussions. We are, moreover, indebted to those who assisted us in interviewing groups of

Preface vii informants in various countries, and, most of all, to our informants without whose cooperation we could not have done what we did.

Contents

Preface

ν

1. Introduction: The Kiel research project 1.1 Planning and development 1.2 Working in the project 1.3 The staff 1.4 Publications

1 1 1 3 5

2. Aspects of address theory 2.0 Basic concepts and terminology 2.1 Some basic publications on the theory of address 2.1.1 Gilman/Brown (1958), Brown/Gilman ( 1960) and Brown/Ford ( 1961 ) 2.1.2 Susan Ervin-Tripp ( 1972) 2.2 Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 2.2.1. Theory of address — a case of "Systemlinguistik"? 2.2.2 Forms of address characterizing the speaker 2.2.3 Reconsidering the concepts of address competence, address system, and address variety 2.2.4 Address systems with a tendency towards assimilation (echoing) 2.2.5 A reformulation of "rules" 2.2.6 Constellations with multiple options of address 2.2.7 Do variants of address constitute a single hierarchy (scale)? 2.2.8 Special functions of "V pronouns" 2.3 When polite forms are impolite, or what politeness actually is (F. Braun/K. Schubert) 2.3.1 The ambiguity of politeness

7 7 14 14 17 18 18 24

29 32 35 37 38 42 45 46

Contents

2.3.1.1 2.3.1.2 2.3.1.3 2.3.2 2.3.2.1

Impolite use of politeness forms Polite use of "non-polite" forms The meanings of politeness What makes a linguistic expression polite? A classification of linguistic markers of politeness 2.3.2.2 Why do people use linguistic expressions of politeness? 2.3.2.3 Means of avoidance 2.3.2.4 A communicative explanation 2.3.2.5 The meaning of expressions of avoidance 2.3.2.6 What is new is polite 2.3.2.7 Polite forms wearing out 2.3.3 Politeness in contrast 2.4 Does the address system affect a speaker's perception of social relationships? 2.5 Conclusions

46 48 49 53

Methodological considerations 3.1 Interviewing informants on the basis of a questionnaire 3.1.1 Advantages 3.1.2 Shortcomings 3.2 Applying the questionnaire in investigating systems of address: two examples 3.2.1 Forms of address in Portuguese 3.2.1.0 Object and procedure of the investigation 3.2.1.1 The evolution of the Portuguese system of bound forms 3.2.1.2 The repertory of free forms 3.2.1.3 Addressing members of the family 3.2.1.4 Addressing neighbors 3.2.1.5 Forms of address at the university 3.2.1.6 Addressing strangers 3.2.1.7 Addressing God 3.2.1.8 Addressing animals 3.2.1.9 Changes in the Portuguese system of address 3.2.1.10 Final remarks

69

53 54 55 56 57 57 59 61 64 66

69 69 71 76 77 77 78 83 84 88 91 92 96 96 96 97

Contents xi 3.2.2

Georgian address behavior around the year 1940 (Klaus Schubert) 3.2.2.1 The informant 3.2.2.2 The Georgian forms of address 3.2.2.2.1 Bound forms: verbs and pronouns of address 3.2.2.2.2 Free forms: the nominal repertory of address 3.2.2.3 Members of the family 3.2.2.4 Neighbors 3.2.2.5 College 3.2.2.6 School 3.2.2.7 Strangers 3.2.2.8 Greetings 3.2.2.9 Interpretation of data 3.2.2.9.1 Inside the family 3.2.2.9.2 Outside the family 3.2.2.10 Summary 3.3 The validity of data obtained from individual informants 3.3.1 The validity of individual data in Norwegian 3.3.1.1 Procedure 3.3.1.2 A brief survey of Norwegian forms of address 3.3.1.3 Constellations with a norm of address: group data and test informant's data 3.3.2 The validity of individual data in Jordanian Arabic 3.3.2.1 Procedure 3.3.2.2 Survey of Jordanian Arabic forms of address 3.3.2.3 Constellations with a norm in free forms of address 3.3.3 Conclusions 3.4 The questionnaire 3.4.1 Reprint of the questionnaire 3.4.1.0 Questions concerning the informant's background

99 99 100 100 100 103 105 106 107 107 108 109 109 111 114 115 117 117 119 121 173 173 175 182 192 195 195 195

Contents

3.4.1.1 3.4.1.2 3.4.1.3 3.4.1.4 3.4.1.5 3.4.1.6 3.4.2 3.4.2.1 3.4.2.2 3.4.2.3 3.4.2.4 3.4.2.5 3.4.2.6

Addressing family members Neighbors University Place of work Unknown addressees Miscellaneous Explanations and comments Family Neighbors University Place of work Unknown addressees Miscellaneous

Two topics of address in interlingual perspective 4.1 What is the meaning of a form of address? 4.1.1 Forms of address and their literal meaning 4.1.2 Forms of address and their referential meaning 4.1.3 Forms of address and their social meaning 4.1.4 The relationship of literal meaning and social meaning 4.1.5 Literal meaning as an indicator of social meaning 4.2 Address inversion 4.2.1 What is address inversion? 4.2.2 Occurrences of address inversion 4.2.3 Hypotheses about the origin and evolution of address inversion 4.2.3.1 Approaches to explaining address inversion 4.2.3.2 Discussion of the hypotheses 4.2.4 The social meaning of address inversion 4.2.5 Address inversion — implications of address theory 4.2.5.1 The concept of reciprocity (symmetry) 4.2.5.2 The definition of "form of address" 4.2.5.3 Lexical meaning and social meaning again

199 204 211 227 235 24 5 248 248 249 250 250 251 251 253 253 253 257 258 259 264 265 265 266 278 278 283 292 293 293 294 296

Contents xiii 5. Publications on forms of address

297

6. Conclusions

303

List of References

313

Supplement to'Braun/Kohz/Schubert (1986): Bibliography, Part II

333

Index

367

1 Introduction: The Kiel research project

1.1 Planning and development In the summer of 1975, Werner Winter conducted a seminar dealing with the reflections of social structure in language, at the Seminar für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft, University of Kiel. This was how our concern with the social information encoded in linguistic forms came into being. A working group was then formed to study forms of address, which were taken as a major example of linguistic indicators of social structure. Members of this group designed a questionnaire for interviewing informants on address behavior in their language, and started the systematic collection of publications and bibliographical material on this subject. Armin Kohz, a member of the group, later published a selective bibliography on forms of address and salutations in his dissertation (Kohz 1982). Such was the background when, in 1980, support for a research project entitled "Reflection of social structure in natural languages: address behavior" was granted by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. It was carried out under the direction of Werner Winter.

1.2 Working in the project The general aim of the project was to gather information on patterns and systems of address in all kinds of languages. This was done in two ways: (a) by collecting publications on forms of address, and compiling them into a bibliography, (b) by interviewing informants on address behavior in their native languages.

2 Introduction: The Kiel research project For the bibliography, more than 1,100 titles were collected, checked, and summarized. The bibliography, annotated and provided with a subject index, will be published with the title Anredeforschung (Braun/Kohz/Schubert 1986). The appendix (p. 333) in the present volume is a sequel to it. Interviews with informants were carried out with the help of the questionnaire which had been designed prior to the project (its final version is reprinted in section 3.4.1). In this way we collected data on Arabic, Chinese, Dari, (Irish) English, Finnish, Georgian, German, Greek, Haussa, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Kazakh, Korean, Kurdish, Mingrelian, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, Tigrinya, and Turkish; Twi had been dealt with before the project commenced (Danso/Goodbody/Kohz 1979). Mostly we interviewed only 1-4 native speakers per language, thus obtaining preliminary and introductory data. The interviews were carried out in Kiel, with foreign students acting as informants. The outcomes of the interviews were recorded in short reports, some of which have already been published. However, feelings of uncertainty remained concerning the possibly high degree of subjectivity in the data of 1-4 informants. This was one of the reasons why more comprehensive investigations (20-30 informants) on some of these languages were carried out in the respective countries. Even 20-30 informants obviously do not suffice to reach a level of statistical representativeness. This was compensated for, in a way, by the large amount of data elicited from every single informant, owing to the number of items included in the questionnaire. One such interview took 2-10 hours, depending on the language under investigation, on the complexity of the respective address system, on the interviewer's acquaintance with the language/address system as well as on the informant's talkativeness. Since the informants were interviewed one at a time, and since there was only one interviewer per language, more could not be achieved within a limited time span. In order to arrive at statistical representativeness in the number of informants we would have been forced to reduce the number of questions, which would have implied reducing the scope of the investigation as well. So we preferred obtaining many data from relatively few informants to obtaining relatively few data from each informant of a large group. The social background of our informants being rather homogeneous (students, mostly

The staff

3

about 18-30 years old), a certain degree of representativeness was achieved at least for their social group (for a more detailed account, cf. section 3.3). Desirable as it would have been to include other social groups as well, this would have reduced the number of representatives of each group again. In addition, our method was not equally suitable for informants from all social and educational levels (cf. 3.1). Apart from procuring data on various address systems, the interviews also served as a test of our methodological approach. We wanted to find out how much information on address behavior can be elicited from native speakers, whether using a questionnaire is a feasible method, and, if so, what such a questionnaire should look like. In addition, we had the opportunity of checking the validity of individual data by comparing them with the data obtained from the larger groups (for methodological aspects cf. section 3). Last, but not least, we hoped to re-evaluate address theory in the light of the interview data — either to find existing approaches supported by more, and more diverse data, or to arrive at different views on our empirical basis. The theoretical considerations in section 2 largely resulted from our findings, and the results outlined in section 4 emerged from our collection of data and of literature.

1.3 The staff Under the direction of Werner Winter several persons participated in the project: Armin Kohz, having already provided a basic stock of bibliographical material, worked in the project right from the start. In connection with his doctor's thesis he had conducted interviews with groups of German and Swedish informants. During his participation in the project (1980-1982) he collected and annotated further publications on forms of address and thus laid the foundation of the bibliography to be published. Apart from that, he interviewed informants on address behavior in Korean, Chinese, and Kurdish and was also occupied with certain aspects of address theory. Before I joined the project in 1981,1 had dealt with Norweigian

4

Introduction: The Kiel research project

forms of address in my dissertation, which was based on the data of a group of Norwegian informants. In the project I continued working with informants, thus gathering data on 17 languages, proceeding from European to Oriental ones. Later I was given the opportunity to enlarge my stock of data on Norwegian and on Jordanian Arabic by interviewing further informants in Norway and in Jordan. Klaus Schubert was employed in the project from 1983 to 1985. During the time of our collaboration, we continued bibliographical work and completed the bibliography. We were also concerned with theoretical problems. Our respective discussions clearly influenced each other's views, although we were co-authors of only one article. Klaus Schubert interviewed informants on address behavior in eight languages, above all languages of Eastern Europe and neighboring ones. During his stays in Yugoslavia and Poland, he provided further material on Serbo-Croatian and Polish. Having left the project in 1985, Klaus Schubert could not directly participate in the present work. Section 3.2, however, is a previous contribution of his, sections 2.0, 2.3, and 5 had been prepared in collaboration, and many of the views presented below have been influenced by his work one way or other. In 1985, Zsuzsanna Bényei joined the project. She is concentrating on address behavior in Finno-Ugrian languages and uses literary texts as a source of data, which is an extension of our methodological scope. She continues the bibliographical work. Other members of the Seminar für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft, though not employed in the project, have been occupied with forms of address as well: Ursula Pieper, and, above all, Ekkehard Hörner who was involved in the preparatory stages of the project and later devised a computation program for the subject index to our bibliography. The laborious and fatiguing tasks connected with the compilation of a bibliography were performed by students: Richard Dolling, Ingeburg Arendt, Gerd Küchmeister, and Karen Letsche.

Publications 5

1.4 Publications

The following list is an enumeration of the works published in preparation of, or in association with, our research project. The titles are included in addition to authors and years to give an impression of the topics treated. For full bibliographical details consult the list of references. 1 Bényei, Zsuzsanna. (1986). Anredeformen in den wogulischen Märchen. 2 Braun, Friederike. (1982a). Anredeverhalten im Norwegischen. 3 Braun, Friederike. (1984a). Die Leistungsfähigkeit der von Brown/Gilman und Brown/Ford eingeführten anredetheoretischen Kategorien bei der praktischen Analyse von Anredesystemen. 4 Braun, Friederike. (1984b). Rumänische Anredeformen. 5 Braun, Friederike. (1984c). Anredeformen im jordanischen Arabisch. 6 Braun, Friederike. (1984d). Anredeformen im Tigrinya. 7 Braun, Friederike. (1985). Umgekehrte Anrede im Arabischen. 8 Braun, Friederike. (1986). Du und Sie in Jordanien. 9 Braun, Friederike/Armin Kohz/Klaus Schabeit.(l9S6). Anredeforschung. Kommentierte Bibliographie zur Soziolinguistik der Anrede. 10 Braun, Friederike/Klaus Schubert. (1986). Von unhöflichen Höflichkeitsformen, und was Höflichkeit eigentlich ist. 11 Danso, Mary/Axel Goodbody/Armin Kohz. (1979). Anredeformen im Twi. 12 Hörner, Ekkehard. (1979). Vorüberlegungen zu einer Theorie der Anrede. 13 Kohz, Armin. ( 1982). Linguistische Aspekte des Anredeverhaltens. 14 Kohz, Armin. (1984a). Markiertheit, Normalität und Natürlichkeit von Anredeformen. 15 Kohz, Armin. ( 1984b). Anredeverhâlten im Kurdischen. 16 Kohz, Armin. (1984c). Das System der Anredeformen im Koreanischen. 17 Pieper, Ursula. (1984). Zur Interaktion linguistischer, sozialer und biologischer Variablen im Problemkreis der "Anrede." 18 Pieper, Ursula. ( 1986). Zur dänischen Anrede. 19 Schubert, Klaus. (1984a). Modernes russisches Anredeverhalten. 20 Schubert, Klaus. (1984b). Mingrelisches Anredeverhalten. 21 Schubert, Klaus. (1984c). Anredeverhalten im heutigen Isländischen — eine Fallstudie. 22 Schubert, Klaus. (1984d). Att lära ut kommunikativa regier: nordiska tilltalsvanor i tyskt perspektiv. 23 Schubert, Klaus. (1984e). ΉΙΙίαΙ och samhällsstruktur. 24 Schubert, Klaus. (1985a). Ist Höflichkeit ungrammatisch? 25 Schubert, Klaus. (1985b). Fremde Sprachen - fremde Situationen. 26 Schubert, Klaus. (1985c). Wie fängt man ein Gespräch an? 27 Schubert, Klaus. (1986a). Gleiche und Ungleiche. Eine Untersuchung zum polnischen Anredeverhalten.

6

Introduction: The Kiel research project

28 Schubert, Klaus. (1986b). Fallstudie zur kasachischen Anrede. 29 Winter, Werner. (1980). Markedness and normalcy/naturalness. Some reflections. 30 Winter, Werner (ed.). (1984). Anredeverhalten - Contains 3, 4, 5, 6, 14,15,16,17,18,19.

2 Aspects of address theory

2.0 Basic concepts and terminology

The terms presented below will subsequently be used as technical terms. They are concepts wich turned out to be useful in dealing with forms of address. Some of them were starting points in our occupation with forms of address, others were coined only in the course of our work. They are also presented in Braun/Kohz/ Schubert (1986). Address indeed is the basic concept of address theory. The term denotes a speaker's linguistic reference to his/her collocutor(s). It does not include, according to our definition, linguistic means of opening interaction or of establishing first contact (cf. the contrast of anreden and ansprechen in German). Forms of address may serve as a means of initiating contact, but frequently other forms are used, e.g., English Hey], German Sag mal, . . . , French Pardonl (cf. Schubert 1985c). All this, as well as verbal and nonverbal greeting, is excluded from our definition of address. Forms of address are words and phrases used for addressing. They refer to the collocutor and thus contain a strong element of deixis. Often they designate the collocutor(s), but not necessarily so, since their lexical meaning can differ from or even contradict the addressee's characteristics (cf. 4.1, 4.2 below). In most languages forms of address concentrate on three word classes: (1) pronoun, (2) verb, (3) noun, supplemented by words which are syntactically dependent on them. Pronouns of address are pronouns referring to the collocutor(s). These are, above all, second person pronouns such as English you, German du and ihr, French tu and vous. But other grammatical persons as well can act as pronouns of address if only they refer to the communication partner, e.g., German Sie (third person plural),

8

Aspects of address theory

Danish De (third person plural), Italian Lei (third person singular feminine). Pronouns of address further include pronominal forms which, from a diachronical point of view, do not belong to the paradigm of genuine personal pronouns, e.g., Spanish usted, Portuguese voce,. Sinhalese tamunnänse. Such forms may have various verb and suffix concordances. Brown/Gilman (1960) introduced the symbols Τ and V to designate the simple or intimate pronoun of address (T) and the polite, distant, or secondary pronoun of address (V) in a language. The abbreviations Τ and V are derived from Latin tu and vos and are especially suitable for languages with a contrast of two pronominal variants such as French tu/vous, German du/Sie, Spanish tû/usted, Dutch jij/U, etc. Many languages, however, have more than two variants. Extending the Brown/Gilman terminology, they might be classified as Τ and Vj, V2, V3 . . . It should further be noted that the "polite", connotation of a V pronoun is very much dependent on the status of the other variants. W\ may not be polite when compared to V2. The ambiguous concept of "politeness" is treated in 2.3.1. As the above examples show, grammatical correspondence to Latin tu and vos is not necessary to speak of Τ and V pronouns. In the category of V all kinds of forms can occur, but even Τ pronouns can be of various origin. Thus extended, the Brown/Gilman classification of Τ and V is a helpful abbreviation. Still, some systems of pronominal address are difficult to describe in terms of Τ and V. Verb forms of address are verbs in which reference to the collocutor is expressed, e.g., by means of inflectional suffixes. Frequently such verb forms are redundant, that is, they are accompanied by a pronoun of address. But in languages where the use of subject pronouns is not obligatory, the verb can be the only bearer of collocutor reference. In the Finnish sentence Mihin menetl 'Where do you go?' the verb mene-t constitutes a form of address, for the inflectional suffix -t (second person singular) is the only element expressing reference to the collocutor. In some languages with facultative subject pronouns the verb is made the bearer of address, especially in those cases where the explicit use of a pronoun is inhibited by uncertainty or politeness. In Portuguese, e.g., third person 'Verbal" address without pronoun or noun is frequently used as a neutral variant by means of which

Basic concepts and terminology 9 speakers escape the selection of variants. In other languages as well, the personal pronoun is not obligatory with any verb form; in German and French the pronoun can be dropped with imperatives — komm \ 'come¡'(secondperson singular), kommt 'come!' (second person plural), but: kommen Sie\ 'come!' (V form); viensl 'come!' (second person singular), venezl 'come!' (second person plural and V form). Nouns of address are substantives and adjectives which designate collocutors or refer to them in some other way. This class comprises the most diverse types, some of which shall here be mentioned because of their frequency: (1) Names belong to the nominal repertory of address in all kinds of languages. Numerous classes of names can be distinguished according to the different naming systems; they may have different functions in address. Personal names, however, are (depending on the culture) sometimes restricted or even tabooed as forms of address. (2) Kinship terms (KT) are terms for blood relations and for affines. When a KT is used for addressing someone who is not related to the speaker in one way or other, this is called a fictive use of a KT. Fictive use can also imply addressing a relative with a term expressing a relationship different from the biological one. In address, there are sometimes special KTs which may or may not occur in reference, e.g., endearing short forms and derivations, or honorific forms. (3) In many languages there are forms of address which correspond to English MrI Mrs, German Herr/Frau, Polish pan/pani, etc. These are general forms which need not be regarded as particular titles and are in common use. This characterization, of course, is vague enough, but a more detailed description of this group of forms would involve language-specific properties. Variants of the Mr/Mrs type, however, may have different properties in different languages: They can be prefixed or suffixed to names, terms of occupation, etc., or they can stand alone. In one language, there may be several contrasting variants of this type, combinable with each other or excluding each other, while in other languages there is only one. The etymological origins of such variants differ in different languages. However, it is useful to have this category of Mr/Mrs forms,

10 Aspects of address theory

for often these variants have to be distinguished from what we call titles; they may have different formal, combinatory, or social characteristics. (4) There is no unanimity as to what should be classified as a "title". Frequently, especially in English, the term title is used without distinction for all nominal variants except names. We prefer to call only those forms titles which are bestowed, achieved by appointment (such as doctor, major), or are inherited (such as Count, Duke). It is sometimes difficult to mark them off against abstract nouns and occupational terms. (5) Abstract nouns are forms of address which originally referred to some abstract quality of the addressee, e.g., (Your) Excellency, (Your) Grace, (Your) Honor. (6) To a greater or lesser extent, occupational terms designating an addressee's profession or function serve as forms of address, e.g., English waiter, French chauffeur (as borrowed into many languages), Russian voditeP 'driver'. They are sometimes combined with other nominal variants, e.g., a Mr/Mrs variant, depending on the rules of the respective address system. (7) Words for certain types of relationship are used as forms of address in many languages, e.g., Turkish arkada§ 'friend', German Kollege 'colleague', Arabic d3a:ri 'neighbor'. The relationship expressed in the term, though, need not correspond to the actual relationship. Sometimes such terms are common even among strangers. (8) Terms of endearment are defined by context and function rather than formal or semantic characteristics. In addressing small children or persons to whom the speaker feels close, almost any noun — whether previously existing or invented for this purpose — can serve as a form of address. Forms of endearment are, to a certain extent, conventionalized, but linguistic creativity and individual imagination play an important part here. (9) Some forms of address define addressees as father, brother, wife, or daughter of someone else by expressing the addressee's relation to another person. Such forms are, e.g., Arabic abu A:li 'father of Ali', bint Ahmed 'daughter of Ahmed', Pashto da Mohammed lur 'daughter of Mohammed', Dari pesaere Abdulla:

Basic concepts and terminology

11

'son of Abdullah'. They often serve as a means of avoiding the addressee's personal name. With regard to nominal forms, address must be clearly distinguished from reference. For kinship terms, rules of address and rules of reference may differ. The English KT grandson is a common form of reference, but will hardly be used as a form of address (the usual nominal variant for addressing a grandson would be first name). Bound forms of address and free forms of address. The distinction of pronouns and verb forms of address on the one hand vs. nominal forms on the other hand does not exactly correspond to the distinction of syntactically bound forms (integrated parts of sentences) and syntactically free forms (forms "outside" the sentence construction; preceding, succeeding, or inserted into the sentence). In German, English, and many other languages, pronouns of address tend to appear as bound forms (sentence 1), while nouns of address occur as free forms (sentence 2), but also the reverse is possible (sentences 3 and 4): (1) Kommst du mit ins Kino? 'Do you come along to the pictures?' (2) Herr Meier, kann ich Sie einen Moment sprechen? 'Air Meier, may I talk to you for a moment?' Kann ich Sie, Herr Meier, einen Moment sprechen? 'May I talk to you, Mr Meier, for a moment?' Kann ich Sie einen Moment sprechen, Herr Meier"} 'May I talk to you for a moment, Mr MeierV (3) Du, kann ich mal dein Fahrrad leihen? 'You, may I have your bicycle?' (4) Hat die Dame noch einen Wunsch? 'Does the lady have another order?' (waiter to customer) While the English pronoun of address you does not give much social information when used as bound form, it may reveal a lot about a dyad when used as a free form (You\ Can you tell me ...), as stated in Schubert (1984e:18f). Similarly, German Sie, the V pronoun, acquires unfavorable connotations when used in a vocative function (Siel Können Sie nicht aufpassen? 'You! Can't you pay attention?').

12 A spects of address theory The distinction of bound forms vs. free forms of address has proved very useful. Not only can pronouns change their "meaning" when used as free forms, but also nominal variants can express different degrees as bound forms and as free forms. Svennung (1958) speaks of indirect address when nominal variants are used as bound forms (sentence 4 above). Although this is only a special case of bound address, the term will subsequently be used here, for in many languages indirect address either has a particular status, such as in German, or functions as a regular expression of superiority or distance, such as in Portuguese (cf. 3.2.1). Though indirect address can be subsumed under bound forms, taken by itself it turned out to be a handy notion. Address inversion is a special pattern of nominal address. The expression was coined by Renzi (1968) as allocuzione inversa and was translated into German as umgekehrte Anrede by Beyrer/ Kostov (1978). Address inversion is the use of a term, mostly a KT, which does not (as would be ususal) express the addressee's, but the speaker's role in the dyad, e.g., a mother addressing a child as mama. This phenomenon may also occur with fictive kinship. In Arabic a senior male unknown to the speaker can be addressed as cammi 'my uncle'. By means of inversion the same term can now be reciprocated to the junior. Address inversion is not restricted to KTs, one may speak of inversion whenever a form of address contains semantic features applicable to the speaker rather than the addressee. KT inversion, however, seems to be the most frequent type. The inversion pattern is an important phenomenon for certain aspects of address theory (cf. 4.2). The system of address comprises the totality of available forms and their interrelations in one language. Languages as well as varieties of languages differ in their repertory of address and in the number of variants. In some languages there is only one pronoun of address for an individual addressee (English), in others two (German), three (Rumanian), or many (Sinhalese). It goes without saying that the existence of several variants, pronominal or other, makes nonreciprocal usgage easier and more frequent and allows a more detailed encoding of differences in age, sex, social, or occupational status. Moreover, cultural norms and values can be reflected in an address system. If KTs of address express, e.g. Juniority and seniority even within one generation, conclusions may be drawn con-

Basic concepts and terminology 13 cerning the importance of age in the respective culture. The same applies to the marking of status or sex in forms of address. If a number of nominal variants in an address system refer to religious contexts, such as Arabic Had i or mulla:, this may indicate the status of religion in the community. From this angle, the system of address, and its change through time, can be a point of sociolinguistic interest. Address behavior is the way individual speakers or groups of speakers use the repertory of address variants available to them. From a sociolinguistic point of view, address behavior is meaningful whenever speakers have to choose between several variants, all of which are grammatically correct in a given conversational context. Extra-linguistic factors then determine the selection of grammatically interchangeable forms. Thus, the variant chosen expresses social features of the dyad. Address behavior is further influenced by a speaker's social and linguistic background. Reciprocity and symmetry. Following Brown/Gilman (1960) and later publications on address theory, reciprocal use of forms of address must be distinguished from nonreciprocal use and symmetrical relationships of address from asymmetrical ones. Address is reciprocal when two speakers exchange the same form of address (or equivalent ones), e.g., when two German speakers address each other as du (Τ), or when speakers of Tigrinya exchange nassaxum (V masculine) and nassaxart (V feminine). Correspondingly, address is nonreciprocal when the forms used by the two speakers in a dyad are different (or non-equivalent), e.g., when a German speaker addresses his/her mother with the KT Mutter 'mother', but is addressed with first name in return. All forms of address in a given dyad being used reciprocally, the address relationship is symmetrical. When different forms are used, the address relationship is asymmetrical. A relationship can be called partly symmetrical if part of the forms are used reciprocally. For practical reasons, another term will be added here, though it is not a basic concept of the theory of address. This term will repeatedly be referred to later, since the phenomenon designated by it has some bearing on theoretical considerations. It is the phenomenon of voseo which is well-known in Roman or Hispanic linguistics. Voseo is found in American or, to be more precise,

14 Aspects of address theory non-European varieties of Spanish: In some of these varieties the original second person singular (and T) pronoun tú was replaced by the former plural (and V) pronoun vos, which thus acquired the status of T. This replacement had its effects on the corresponding verb forms — the former singular forms were largely displaced by plural. Traces of tú, however, were left as oblique forms of vos. Moreover, the voseo led to the universal use of ustedes in the plural, i.e., in addressing several persons. It is not necessary to discuss the types and occurrences of voseo in detail now.

2.1 Some basic publications on the theory of address 2.1.1 Gilman/Brown (1958), Brown/Gilman (1960) and Brown/ Ford(1961) Of all publications dealing with forms of address, the works of Roger Brown and his colleagues, Albert Gilman and Marguerite Ford, have probably received most attention. They were frequently reprinted and translated, today it is hardly possible to say anything about address without referring to them - just as it is impossible to write about linguistic matters without mentioning Saussure. And this is justified, for, apart from anything else, Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford can be regarded as the initiators of modern sociolinguistic investigation of forms of address, which subsequently became a fashionable subject. The views presented in Gilman/ Brown (1958), Brown/Gilman (1960), and Brown/Ford (1961) will be the starting point of the theoretical considerations below; a good deal of the theoretical section will be devoted to their criticism, or rather, to an amplification. Hence, a summary of the main arguments of the respective works will be useful. Albert Gilman!Roger Brown: Who says 'Tu' to whom? (1958) Gilman/Brown here discuss the differentiation of pronouns of address ("polite" vs. familiar) in European languages. The differentiation started with the Latin vos being addressed to the Roman emperor in the 4th century A.D. When the plural address began to spread, two dimensions of pronominal usage developed:

Some basic publications on the theory of address 15 (1) the vertical status dimension (plural/polite pronoun used to superiors, singular/familiar pronoun used to inferiors), (2) the horizontal status dimension (plural/polite pronoun used among distant equals, singular/familiar pronoun among intimate equals). Gilman/Brown demonstrate how the two dimensions operated in the history of French pronouns of address. They observe that in recent times the horizontal dimension, hence reciprocity of address, has been dominant and differences in status are less frequently expressed in address. From the same angle, the history of English, German, and Italian pronominal address is likewise considered. Gilman/Brown finally point to the fact that the loss of pronominal differentiation in English does not prevent nominal differentiation in address. Roger Brown/Albert Gilman: The pronouns of power and solidarity {I960) In this paper, the subject is again differentiation of pronominal address. Brown/Gilman introduce the symbols Τ and V (Latin tu and vos) for the "familiar" second person pronoun and the "polite" pronoun. Again, the Roman empire is mentioned as the starting point of pronominal differentiation. In the middle ages, European T/V usage was governed by a "power semantic", as the authors now call it: superiors received V, inferiors received T, so that nonreciprocity and asymmetry were common. Upper class speakers, however, addressed each other with reciprocal V, lower class speakers with reciprocal T. Pronominal address thus reflected social structure and the power semantic, which prevailed up to the 19th century. Later, the selection of Τ and V came to be determined by factors other than power. The criterion now was whether speakers had something in common (T pronoun) or not (V pronoun). This re-evaluation of social features is called "solidarity semantic"; it led to reciprocity of address with mutual Τ in the case of intimacy and mutual V in the case of distance. Subsequently there was an extension of the Τ area. Having interviewed informants about address behavior in French, German, and Italian, Brown/Gilman come to the conclusion that the German Τ is used mainly for family relations, while French and Italian Τ are triggered by acquired characteristics of the addressee. Brown/Gilman point to the social background of the power semantic, a static and hierarchical society, as opposed to the egalitarian ideology producing a solidarity semantic. Examples

16

Aspects of address theory

such as the French revolution, the society of Friends, etc., further illustrate the correlation of social structure, or ideology, and address. Within a community, the authors observe, there are certain styles of address typical of social groups or of individual speakers (according to ideology). Finally, Brown/Gilman describe spontaneous switching to Τ as an expression of anger, or intimacy, and spontaneous V as an expression of respect, or of distance in the European literature of past centuries. Roger Brown/Marguerite Ford: Address in American English (1961)

Brown/Ford examine nominal address in American English, contrasting above all the use of first names (FN) and the use of titles + last names (TLN). "Titles" here comprise forms as Mr/Mrs, Dr, Senator, etc. The occurrence of FN vs. TLN is investigated by a review of American plays, by observing address behavior in a Boston firm, by interviewing informants, and by tape recordings. In the majority of cases, the authors find, FN is reciprocated, while TLN is used only at the beginning of acquaintances. Thus, intimacy and distance are determining the selection in symmetrical relationships. Nonreciprocity of FN and TLN is caused by differences in age or professional status. Additional nominal variants are classified as follows: Τ (Madam, Sir, Miss) is more respectful than TLN; LN (alone) is placed halfway between FN and TLN. The familiar extreme is MN (multiple names — use of a great variety of names for the same addressee). Lexical differentiation in referring to the same object is, according to Brown/Ford, an indicator of its importance to the speakers. As a parallel to the FN/TLN dichotomy in American English, Brown/Ford mention the T/V differentiation found in other languages. Always, the intimate form is used downwards (i.e., to status inferiors) and the distant form upwards. Under the same aspect Brown/Ford analyze American variants of greeting, Hi vs. Good morning. Finally the authors discuss the progression of address towards intimacy, as acquaintances grow informal. It is the superior who initiates the step towards intimate forms of address, with nonreciprocal patterns as intermediate or final stages. The maximum progression ranges from Τ to MN. Intimate nonverbal acts as well are initiated by the superior.

Some basic publications on the theory of address

17

2.1.2 Susan Ervin-Tripp (1972) Another author frequently referred to in works dealing with forms of address is Susan Ervin-Tripp. Although she is much less a "father" (mother) of address research than Brown/Gilman and Brown/ Ford, her articles are hardly missing in any bibliography/list of references on forms of address and have also been repeatedly reprinted and re-edited. Apparently they acquired this position because of their general nature, the great number of works cited and the scope of languages considered. But most of all, ErvinTripp has become known for her method of diagramming selection of forms of address. Ervin-Tripp's main reflections on forms of address will now be summarized on the basis of Ervin-Tripp (1972): On sociolinguistic rules: Alternation and co-occurrence. Here address is presented as a case of alternation. Ervin-Tripp points to the FN vs. TLN distribution in American English as characterized by Brown/Ford and summarizes the regularities, slightly modified, in a diagram resembling a computer flow chart. Though not intended as an immediate model of the selection process in speakers, the flow chart demonstrates the effects of determining factors on the choice of a variant. These factors, "selectors", are subsequently discussed. In a section on the comparison of address systems, Ervin-Tripp mentions variation in address behavior within one community and describes Asian systems of address. As an example of dichotomical systems the T/V distinction in pronouns of address is treated. Flow charts are set up for the selection of Τ and V in 19th-century Russian, in Yiddish, and Puerto Rican Spanish, demonstrating that the rules in two-variant-systems are not necessarily simpler than those in a more comprehensive system. Different groups of speakers may employ different rules. Ervin-Tripp makes suggestions for a typology of address systems and outlines the problems which arise from interference in address behavior. She finally mentions other means of expressing social relationships, e.g., nonverbal behavior. In the second part, "Co-occurrence", address is only sporadically mentioned. Further "classics" of address literature might have been referred to here. However, it was not intended to provide a survey on the standard works dealing with forms of address — which would be

18

Aspects of address theory

a major task. Rather, attention should be drawn to some publications which exerted a particular influence on the theory and investigation of address, as well as to the direction and the effect of this influence. The kind of approach which, subsequent to Brown/ Gilman, Brown/Ford, and Ervin-Tripp, has become traditional in the investigation of address shall be commented upon according to our experience.

2.2 Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 2.2.1 Theory of address - a case of "Systemlinguistik"? The above works in mind, one should imagine that analysis of address systems was a relatively easy thing to do. Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford provided the notions of reciprocity/nonreciproity (symmetry/asymmetry), of "power" and "solidarity", of Τ and V pronoun; Ervin-Tripp demonstrated how to summarize rules of address in the shape of a flow chart — handy tools, it seems, for describing address phenomena. However, there is a major drawback which makes it difficult to apply the concepts of address theory to address reality. This drawback may be characterized as a "systemlinguistischer Ansatz", as it would be called in German. 1 The tendency towards Systemlinguistik is not very pronounced, even less explicit, in the articles cited, but it often enters into the arguments as a kind of tacit assumption. "Systemlinguistik" implies that a theory or hypothesis proceeds from a closed and homogeneous system, here: a system of address. A system of address is closed when there is a well-known and limited set of variants — forms of address — and homogeneous when all speakers select and use these variants in roughly the same way. The alternative view, a truly sociolinguistic one, would hold that language varies — according to speakers' age, class, education, religion, ideology, sex, etc. With regard to address behavior, this latter view comes closer to reality, since speakers of the same lan-

1. A similar criticism is put foward in Alrabaa (1985:645).

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 19 guage differ in the number of variants which make up their address repertory as well as in the rules according to which they select forms from their repertory. The existence of language variation, i.e., address variation, is neither denied nor ignored by Brown/ Gilman, Brown/Ford, and Ervin-Tripp. Brown/Gilman, e.g., refer to variation mainly under the heading "Group style with the pronouns of address" (1960:269-273). Here they point to the relation between social characteristics of the speaker and his/her pronoun usage. In the Brown/Ford article, variation is hardly mentioned, but the authors point to the group specific usage of American English nominal forms such as Mack and Buddy (1961:376). In both articles, though, the fact of address variation is not accounted for in the general tendencies or regularities of address outlined. Brown/Gilman define "pronoun style" as a certain range of variation seen against the background of a recognizable constancy. On the basis of this constancy, their more general statements (described already in preceding paragraphs) did not take cognizance of variation. This concerns, e.g., the famous figures 1 (a) and 1 (b) (Brown/Gilman 1960:259) which presuppose the assumption that all speakers have both Τ and V in their repertory and use them approximately to the same extent. It also concerns the two most important regularities indicated by Brown/Gilman and, even more emphatically, by Brown/Ford: 1 ) Reciprocal use of address variants signals either mutual distance (e.g., with the V pronoun) or intimacy (T pronoun), while status differences are ignored or reformulated into degrees of intimacy/distance. 2) Nonreciprocal use of address variants signals status differences, with the V pronoun or distant nominal forms being used upwards and the Τ pronoun or intimate nominal forms being used downwards. These crucial points are unaffected by the possibility of variation. Ervin-Tripp, too, mentions the occurrence of variation in address rules and behavior (1972: 222, 223f, 231 ), it is thus not completely excluded from her observations. However, presenting rules in a flow chart is in itself a method of voluntary or involuntary standardizing and leads to reducing behavior to a single set of rules. A flow

20

A spects of address theory

chart can only summarize or symbolize the selection process which takes place either in one speaker or in a completely homogeneous speech community. Ervin-Tripp herself points to the fact that the flow chart for American English forms of address (1972:219) represents a speaker who is a competent adult member of a Western academic community (1972:220). Justified or not, one is reminded of the Chomskyan ideal speaker-listener living in an ideal speech community which is only a multiplication of the same linguistic competence. Certainly Ervin-Tripp did not intend to set up such an unrealistic model. But, as with Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford, the reader is left with the impression that address behavior is governed by an assemblage of uncontradictory and simple rules. In order to illustrate the "disturbances" caused by variation and the subsequent problems in applying address theory, some examples will now be given. (1) Collecting data on Jordanian Arabic, I found a number of variants functioning as bound forms of address. The most frequent one is inta/inti (also pronounced inte, in ti- — masculine, and in ti: — feminine), the second person singular pronoun (masculine and feminine), "T pronoun" in the Brown/Gilman terminology. It is opposed to several bound forms of "politeness", the most important of which is Tiadertakfñadertik (or ftacíertak/ñadertik), something like a "V pronoun". The use of Hadertakfñadertik, as the informants told me and as the data illustrate, is not only dependent on the relationship between speaker and addressee, but also on the social and linguistic background of the speaker. Rural speakers (farmers, Bedouins) and speakers from the urban lower classes use Tradertak/hadertik to a much lesser extent than do educated middle or upper class urban speakers. Thus, the tendency to be expected following Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford — inta/ inti to inferiors or intimates, Hadertak/Tiadertik to superiors and non-intimates — cannot be established. It may happen that a high status speaker gives inta/inti to a lower status speaker because the status relation allows him/her to do so. But it would not be unlikely for the lower status speaker to return inta/inti to the higher status addressee, because for him/her this variant may cover most or all constellations. Reciprocity may thus occur without any egalitarian background, simply because the collocutors apply different rules of address.

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address

21

Alrabaa (1985) notes considerable differences in pronoun usage in Egyptian Arabic as well. But a different development, leading to "role reversal" (Alrabaa 1985:648f), has taken place in Egypt: upper-class speakers extend inta/inti, while lower-class speakers make increased use of hadritak/hadritik, apparently in imitation of what they believe to be upper-class or middle-class address behavior. In our Jordanian informants' data, as many as 15 variants have been found to serve as bound forms of address (for a more detailed account cf. 3.3.2.2). This need not even be a final number. The informants differed in the number of variants which they used as a part of their active repertory and also in the ways they applied them, although their social background was comparable. It is easy to imagine the difficulties which arise in trying to apply the notions of reciprocity and nonreciprocity under these circumstances. How could there possibly be reciprocity, if the variant used by one speaker of the dyad is simply missing in the other's repertory? (2) Another example is pronominal address in Italian. The majority of speakers have a pronominal dichotomy of the T/V type: tu (Τ)/ Lei (V). Yet, there are regions where a threefold distinction — tuÇT)/voi ( V j )/Lei (V2) — is employed, as is briefly alluded to but otherwise ignored by Brown/Gilman (1960:264). Bates and Benigni (1975) who aim at describing sociolinguistic variation in Italian address behavior and criticize the "Systemlinguistik" approach summarize the use of voi in the trichotomical system as follows (1975:279): However, most LC Ss [lower-class subjects] who use voi also use the formal pronoun Lei. Many of our Ss apparently have a tripartite system, in which Lei is reserved as the respect form for non-familiar superiors and/or distant acquaintances in the city, while voi is used in the family, and may also be extended to superiors and distant acquaintances 'back home'.

The existence of two V forms has important consequences for the question of reciprocity: The intimate V, voi, enhances the possibility of nonreciprocal pronoun usage. This is confirmed by the findings of Bates/Benigni (1975:283), which indicate that voi users arrive at a comparatively high proportion of nonreciprocity within the family. It is quite natural that non-users of voi do not have nonreciprocity in familial contexts, for they would have to employ Lei upwards then, which implies a much greater move towards distance and/or deference.

22 A spects of address theory If a kind of respect scale was set up for a voi user and a nonuser, the voi range would probably correspond to an upper part of the other's tu range and to a lower part of the Lei range. So voiLei or voi-tu could express one and the same degree of respect. This example illustrates how difficult, if not impossible, it can be to compare data from different varieties of one language. Nonreciprocity with a voi user may be something different, i.e., less decisive or less status-laden, than nonreciprocity with non-users of voi, who have to employ the strong opposition of tu and Lei then. And if one comes across a dyad with voi-Lei asymmetry, one must make sure whether both speakers possess the option of voi, before being able to decide the question of reciprocity. (3) Another example comes from Turkish. In Turkey, there is a tendency for less educated rural speakers to address unknown people with KTs corresponding to the age relationship. Some of the educated urban and upper-class speakers, though, are inclined to use nominal forms of the Mr/Mrs type — efendi, bey, beyefendi (to males) and hanim, hanimefendi (to females) — or to at least avoid KTs, since they also function as indicators of low addressee status. Our Turkish informant avoided KTs for this reason. Hence, it is possible for a high-status addressee to receive a KT from a low-status speaker and not to reciprocate it. Normally, one would interpret this nonreciprocity as reflecting a status difference quite contrary to the actual one, concluding that the receiver of the KT (here: the superior) had a lower social position. The expected nonreciprocity is reversed here. Kuglin (1977:2680 mentions a similar reversal of nonreciprocity in Turkish pronominal address. He describes a professor addressing a janitor with V and receiving Τ from the janitor in return. This kind of asymmetry, Kuglin explains, is due to the interference of different norms of address. These examples may show that the rules, or rather regularities, discovered by Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford are not general enough to serve as universal guide lines in analyzing address behavior in all kinds of languages and societies. The type of nonreciprocity/reciprocity (asymmetry/symmetry) they define is only one of at least two and and allows only a one-sided interpretation. As for the Ervin-Tripp method of using flowcharts, it should be

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address

23

noted that such a description model can hardly account for variation: Firstly, the variants to be listed as possible outcomes of the selection process can differ from one speaker to another. Secondly, the factors determining selection can vary, too. All this depends on the sociolinguistic background of speakers. Certainly, one can imagine a flow chart which includes speaker characteristics such as +/- urban, +/- young and the like. But this kind of flow chart, burdened with all kinds of selectors partly referring to speaker, partly to addressee, would become uneconomic and confusing instead of summarizing rules in an illustrative way. In addition, the flow chart would no longer be a model of the selection process, for speakers cannot normally choose a language variety as they choose forms of address from an accessible repertory. The only reasonable way of dealing with variation would imply setting up separate flow charts for each language (or address) variety. It should be emphasized that variation in address is not an exception but rather the rule. The above examples are not isolated cases, used to pick on well-known authors as Brown/Gilman, Brown/Ford, and Ervin-Tripp. Of all the address systems we dealt with, there was hardly one with sufficient homogeneity as to be satisfactorily described in terms of these authors. Since speakers do not, and cannot, confine communication to their own social group, there will be heterogeneity of address behavior in everyday situations and dyads. The greater the social diversity in a given community, the more pronounced can be the variation in address behavior. This is evident as one turns away from European or Western societies. One will find variation according to factors like regional dialect, urban vs. rural background, class, education, age, sex, ideology, religion, etc. There may be clusters of factors supporting one another or interfering with each other. Hence, reducing the speech community under investigation to a single dialect, sociolect, or whatever in order to arrive at homogeneity is no way out. The more factors there are, the smaller will be the group speaking a variety which could be called homogeneous — until finally the problematic stage of the idiolect is reached, which is of no help in the case of address, anyway, since it normally takes two speakers for the act of address to take place. The question remains why the phenomenon of address variation received so little attention. For Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford, the answer is easy. They worked mainly, though not exclusively,

24

Aspects of address theory

with European or Western languages: above all American English and in the second place French, Italian, and German. These are languages which have undergone quite a long and successful process of standardization.2 The spread of their standard varieties is promoted by the mass media and other institutions. Moreover, their address repertories, especially the pronominal ones, are not too comprehensive and most of their variants are in use all over the speech communities. Another reason may have been the selection of informants. Brown/Gilman themselves (1960:262) point to the fact that they worked with male informants, coming from cities of over 300,000 inhabitants and from upper-middle-class professional families only. In a group of speakers as homogeneous as that, variation need not be conspicuous. Dealing with "exotic" languages, however, one may come across variation even in the data of a single informant, as soon as he/she reports what collocutors say to him/her. The problems of variation and, consequently, of the representativeness of informants, are discussed in 3.3.

2.2.2 Forms of address characterizing the speaker Whenever variation in address behavior is strong, the use of a certain form may give more information about the person of the speaker than about the addressee or the relationship between the two. Like a language variety as a whole, an address variety is part of the voluntary or involuntary self-presentation of speakers. The following examples will show that variation of this kind is wide-spread. (1) In Norway, there has been a rapid change of address habits during the last 20 years with the Τ pronoun du gaining very much ground and the V pronoun De losing correspondingly. As a consequence of the accelerated development, address behavior of young speakers and address behavior of older speakers are governed by different rules. It is not uncommon for a 22-year-old speaker to say du to an unknown 5o or 6o-year-old addressee, e.g., when asking for information in the street. It is not uncommon for the older one in this dyad to respond with De, either, for he/she was 2. It goes without saying that homogeneity is a fiction even with these languages, as is evident in the case of Italian voi.

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address

25

brought up at a time when De was the form to choose for unknown adults. It is possible that one of the two "gives in" and switches to the pronoun used by the other. But it is equally possible that this asymmetry is maintained throughout the interaction, if the older one cannot force himself/herself to break his/her internalized rules and if the younger one is a conscious user of du who favors the spread of a universal du. Again, a reversed type of nonreciprocity is the outcome; there are several instances of it in our data (cf. Braun 1982a, further occurrences in the 1983 data). This kind of nonreciprocity does not imply that the younger one considers the older one inferior and is considered superior in return, it rather tells something about the speakers' ages and their attitudes towards address or, maybe, manners in general (old-fashioned vs. relaxed). (2) In Jordanian Arabic selection of bound forms of address is at least partly dependent on the social background of the speaker, as described above, so that, e.g., an almost universal use of the Τ pronoun inta/inti can characterize a speaker as rural, lower-class or little educated. But there is another interesting way of selfpresentation by means of choosing a bound form of address. Instead of the "normal", i.e., dialectal, form of the Τ pronoun (inta/ inti), a speaker may use its "classical" or standard Arabic counterpart anta/anti. This small instance of code-switching can serve to demonstrate the speaker's education or (high) position in society. Switching to a formal style can, of course, express deference to the addressee as well, but deference is not necessarily implied. In this respect, use of anta/anti need not symbolize the addressee's status, but the status of its user who displays knowledge and education (cf. Braun 1986). The other Jordanian Arabic bound forms of address have dialectal and standard forms as well, thus forming further oppositions of the inta/inti:anta/anti type (cf. 3.3.2.2).3 (3) In Polish, there is no T/V dichotomy in the usual sense. A corresponding contrast, however, is formed by opposing the second person singular pronoun ty (T) to indirect address with a noun instead of the pronoun ("V"). Most frequently, the noun used is 3. It is not uncommon for forms of address or forms of politeness to be associated with self-presentation. Ide (1982:378) notes that Japanese honorifics can be used as a mark of demeanor and signal the speaker's good upbringing or higher social standing.

26 Aspects of address theory pan/pani 'Mr/Mrs' or 'sir/madam', which is combined with a third person verb (plural when the noun is plural and refers to several addressees). This construction has about the same status as a V pronoun in other languages. There are non-standard varieties, however, where a combination of pan/pani or any other noun with a second person verb is possible. Indirect address in the second person may then function as an intermediate stage between the Τ pronoun and noun + third person (Damerau 1967:24, Soerensen 1900:72, Schubert 1986b). Addressing someone with noun + second person, speakers give information about their own social background as well as about the relationship to the addressee. (4) A T/V dichotomy of the French type is found in Finnish, with the Τ pronoun sinä (second person singular) and the V pronoun te (second person plural). In certain dialects, though, the third person singular pronoun hän serves as a V pronoun. By the use of hän, a speaker not only displays a certain attitude towards the addressee, but also marks himself/herself as belonging to a special regional or dialectal group. There is another variant of address in Finnish which is typical of a restricted group of speakers. This is indirect address with noun + third person verb, a pattern which was much more frequent in former times and is nowadays mostly displaced by te (V). But some speakers of the older generation are still accustomed to using this variant (Lehtinen 1963:80), thereby presenting themselves as being old (-fashioned). (5) The English address sytem, too, contains address variants which point to certain aspects of the speaker's biography. Kramer (1975) found that in American English, male speakers have a greater repertory of nominal address at their disposal than female speakers. Especially variants such as Mac, honey, baby (to an unknown addressee) are typical of male address behavior and almost absent from the conventional female address behavior. Our data, obtained in an interview on Irish English, indicated a sociolectal distribution of similar terms of "endearment" in the context of addressing strangers. Terms like honey, love, sweetheart were used by male speakers with low social status to address our (female) informant. The informant reported that this kind of address behavior was associated with lower social standing, but not necessarily with male speakers only. A female speaker, e.g., salesclerk or waitress, might just as well address an unknown male

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 27 customer as sweetheart or honey. Similarly, the use of Mr/Mrs (Miss) without name in communication with strangers seemed to be typical of speakers with lower social status. Variants like these which are not equally frequent in the different layers and groups of society, constitute signals by which speakers, mostly unintendedly, present themselves as being male, of lower social standing, or whatever. But they can also consciously be used by speakers who thus mark themselves as adhering to certain ideological views, e.g., by a feminist who wants to change the conventional behavior associated with the female role. (6) Another example comes from Ethiopia. In one of the main Ethiopian languages, Tigrinya, there are Τ pronouns (nsssdxa, masculine/wajiaxi, feminine) and V pronouns (nassaxum, masculine/nassaxart, feminine). In addition, third person honorific pronouns are used as V pronouns by some speakers (nassum/ nassan). Bender/Fulass/Crowley (1976:112) indicate a restricted regional distribution for the third person V, which is really V2, then, because the second person V nassaxum/nassaxan functions as an intermediate form (V j) for these speakers (cf. also Braun 1984d). Addressing someone else with ndssum/nassan thus conveys information about the regional background of the speaker, in addition to the other aspects involved. (7) In Persian, as in many other languages, frequent or almost exclusive use of the Τ pronoun, to, is found in lower classes and with speakers of rural background and should therefore be interpreted in terms of speaker characteristics, not necessarily of addressee status. After the revolution in Iran, informants told me, the address terms beradœr/xahœr 'brother/sister' have become increasingly frequent in communication with strangers. These KTs are favored as forms of address among staunch Moslems and thus have acquired a symbolic meaning after the Islamic revolution. According to the informants' observations, beradœr/xahœr were mainly used by those who supported the policy and the religious attitude of the new government and hence were markers of the speaker's political standpoint. (8) German du, to mention one last example, can also be an indicator of a speaker's political or ideological views. There are

28 Aspects of address theory speakers, especially young ones and students, who like to extend the d«(T)-domain of address and who intend to promote a wider spread of informal terms on an egalitarian basis. Such a person's address behavior is in many cases symptomatical of his/her way of thinking rather than of his/her attitude towards or evaluation of the addressee. An acquaintance of mine once tried to be on du terms with everyone and said du even to unknown addressees, about 60 years of age (being not much more than 20 years old himself). As expected, this attempt was not successful and he returned to "normal" German address behavior. This phase of universal du, however, was a time in which his (pronominal) address behavior was entirely a display of ideology. In certain political organizations, e.g., the Social Democrat Party, there are norms prescribing that members address each other with du — at least on official occasions. This du, exchanged between adults who do not necessarily know each other well, is not a sign of intimacy as it would otherwise be in the German address system. It signals group membership, combined with political attitude. By means of the Τ pronoun — and, of course, corresponding nominal forms as Genösse 'comrade', Kollege 'colleague' — the speakers tell each other that they belong to the group and adhere to its norms, but they do not tell anything about their personal relationship to the addressee. In the GDR, the address term Genösse 'comrade' is mainly used by members of the socialist party as well as by the police and the army (Siebert 1976:298). It is exchanged among the members of these groups, but also in addressing out-group interlocutors. The use of Genösse or Genossin therefore conveys information about a speaker's political standpoint or his/her membership in a certain organization. The selection of Genösse/ Genossin in contrast to other nominal variants (names, KTs, etc.) of course is indicative of the relationship between speaker and addressee (and may be described with the features "-related", "-acquainted"), but some emphasis is placed on the speaker's self-presentation. This list of examples could easily, and endlessly, be continued. What it goes to show is that speaker characteristics have to be taken into consideration when formulating rules or generalizing about address behavior. Whenever instances of address are to be

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address

29

interpreted, speaker biography will be a factor (or rather a set of factors) to be reckoned with. Interpreting instances of address solely in terms of addressee characteristics and speaker-addressee relationship, more often than not is insufficient. For many speaker characteristics affecting the choice of address variants are not relational, i.e., not derivable from the speaker-addressee relationship. Characteristics of this type are, among others, speaker's ideology (examples (7), (8) above), absolute age (examples (1), (4), partly (8)), regional dialect (examples (4), (6)), absolute social position (examples (2), (3), (5), (7)), group membership (example (8)), sex (example (5)), and demonstration of own status/education (example (2)). In theoretical considerations, speaker characteristics are often neglected. A speaker is somehow taken for granted, but frequently it is a speaker without any characteristics. Certainly it depends on the respective community to what degree speaker biography influences the selection of forms of address. But there is no reason to believe it does not, even if the influence is small in one's own language community. A number of authors have dealt with the effect of speaker characteristics on address behavior, so there is no lack of material. These results, however, have not yet modified the common approaches to address theory which are usually based on Brown/ Gilman and Brown/Ford and attach little or no importance to variation caused by speaker characteristics. The following works, among others, discuss or at least refer to the effect of speaker characteristics: AdamuSko (1979), Bates/Benigni (1975), Benigni/Bates (1977), Chandrasekhar (1970), Fox (1969), Kartomihardjo (1979:125-197), Kess/Jurició (1978), Khubchandani (1978), Kloeke (1925-1926), Kramer (1975), Kuglin (1977), Lambert (1967, 1969), Lambert/ Tucker (1976), McConnell-Ginet (1978), McCormack (1956), Niculescu (1968), Parkinson (1982), Peng/Kagiyama (1973), Suárez (1972).

2.2.3 Reconsidering the concepts of address competence, address system, and address varity In view of the fact that different speakers employ different rules

30

Aspects of address theory

and different forms of address as emphasized above, one may wonder how potential hearers/addressees put up with this heterogeneity. What happens when speakers with different address behavior communicate? Does this lead to misinterpretations and conflicts or do they react with mutual understanding and tolerance? — It seems that in most cases, speakers tolerate each other's "deviant" behavior. Of course, they draw their own conclusions when addressed with a variant which strikes them as unusual (in general or at least in the respective situation). They will regard the instance of address in question as typically lower class, rural, oldfashioned, dialectal, etc., just as they obtain social information from other linguistic features in the other's utterances. A certain degree of openness is necessary, especially in languages with strong variation; otherwise linguistic differences would turn communication into a permanent source of misunderstanding, trouble, and quarrel. Sometimes conflicts do arise from the heterogeneity of address behavior, though comparatively few in relation to the total frequency of address. There was, e.g., the meanwhile famous case of the German greengrocer who literally had to pay for her use of the Τ pronoun du to a policeman (cf. Kohz 1982:61, Kieler Nachrichten Sept. 9, 1976, Die Welt March 22, 1977). 2,250 German marks was the fine for this instance of "deviant" address. In court, the woman justified her address behavior as typically rural. Whether rural or individual, this case of deviant behavior — deviant from the point of view of the policeman and deviant from the norm — was not met with tolerance, nor interpreted as a simple sociolinguistic indicator. This may be due to the relatively low degree of variation in the German address system — speakers are less used to being confronted with address behavior different from their own -, but it may also be due to an individual lack of flexibility on the policeman's part (provided he was not right in regarding the du address as offensive). In Norway and Denmark, where the Τ pronoun du has undergone a rapid extension, the different address behavior of young speakers and old speakers sometimes evokes irritation or feelings of uneasiness, especially in the older collocutor. Reactions depend on the individual speaker's capability of adaptation. In general, however, heterogeneity of address behavior relatively rarely leads to crises in communication. What enables speakers to accept behavior different from their own and to interpret it in

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 31 terms of speaker characteristics rather than evaluating it according to their own standards? This can only be explained as part of their address competence. Address competence not only includes a repertory of forms of address for active use and a set of application rules, but also some knowledge of address variation within the community. Hence, speakers also have a "passive repertory" (forms they know but do not use) and a "passive" knowledge of other speakers' application rules, which enable them to relate address behavior to the collocutor's social or regional background. This does not mean that speakers evaluate different types of address behavior as equivalent. There are the most diverse attitudes towards others' address habits, frequently even heavy prejudices such as: "Young people have bad manners", "Old people behave stiff and cold", "The lower classes don't know what politeness is". Neither does it mean that all speakers are acquainted with any variety of address and react accordingly. But address competence, with its passive component being more comprehensive than the active one, accounts for a good deal of openness and flexibility in the interaction between different groups of society. The fact that there is heterogeneity, i.e., variation in address repertories and in the rules of application is also important for the concept of the address system. In 2.0 a system of address was defined as consisting of a repertory of forms and the relationships among them. This definition does not, however, presuppose homogeneity. On the contrary, the concept of system must account for variation. Thus, the repertory of forms on which a system is based must include all variants existing, i.e., the total potential of forms usable in address function in a given community. Moreover, the system must account for the varying relationships between the forms as determined by different sets of application rules. Within the system, sub-groups of forms and their relationships constitute address varieties, e.g. regional, social, or individual varieties. Speakers never have command of the system in its totality, but they normally participate in more than one variety. When growing older, e.g., speakers change their linguistic behavior, including address. It seems that in all languages, children have special varieties of address which are given up at later stages of linguistic development (though parts of the repertory may be retained). Participation in several address varieties occurs not only successively, but also simultaneously. One and the same person, e.g., a student from the

32

Aspects of address theory

countryside, may use more than one set of forms and rules, e.g., variety A when speaking his native dialect with acquaintances at home and variety Β when adapting to the standard during his stays at the university in the capital. The varieties which are known to individual speakers, though not necessarily used by them (i.e., the passive varieties) are even more numerous. There is interaction among the varieties of a system; they do not constitute closed sub-systems, and gradual variation is possible. Thus, an individual speaker's address competence covers only part of the system, but may include several varieties as well as a mechanism of switching between varieties. Address competence, as it were, expands as speakers grow older, since they come into contact with more and more varieties of address and hence enlarge at least their passive competence, their interpretation capacity. The question remains how speakers react to new varieties of address and also whether they have sufficient knowledge of varieties other than their own to arrive at correct interpretations of the other's behavior. But as with communication in general, no one will ever know whether their interpretation exactly corresponds to the speaker's intentions. If perfect understanding is impossible, however, people in most cases still seem to get along pretty well with their deficient interpretation. The concept of address system as put forward here, clearly is influenced by sociolinguistic ideas about language systems. According to these ideas, the presupposition of homogeneity should be eliminated. Variation and varieties must not be neglected as something outside the system itself. Since I do not here intend to enter into a discussion of the concept of the language system, it may suffice to name William Labov as a sociolinguist who has repeatedly expressed pertinent views (e.g., in Labov 1970). With regard to forms of address, this approach has again proved realistic. Trying to interpret instances of address from a "Systemlinguistik" approach, one often arrives at the "difficulty in coming to grips with the fundamental data of language", as Labov (1970:84) puts it.

2.2.4 Address systems with a tendency towards assimilation (echoing) Variation, as described in 2.2.2, can disturb the usual interpretation

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 33 of reciprocity/nonreciprocity (symmetry/asymmetry), power and solidarity, or the formulation of generalizing rules. Another source of "disturbance" is the tendency found in some address systems to assimilate the forms exchanged in a dyad. In these cases, frequently, the inferior speaker of the dyad — inferior in age or status — uses an address variant which expresses the other's superior position and the superior responds with the same, or a similar, term, inappropriate as it may seem. It is doubtful whether this type of reciprocity can be attributed to an egalitarian attitude. Reciprocal usage of this kind obviously is not covered by the evaluation of reciprocity suggested by Brown/Gilman and Brown/ Ford. The most prominent example of the assimilation tendency is the phenomenon of address inversion. Instances of inversion are found in a number of languages. As outlined in 2.0, inversion consists of the reciprocation of a term suiting one of the collocutors, mostly a variant expressing seniority or superiority. Thus, Arabic xa.ii 'my (maternal) uncle' can be used for both uncle and (by reciprocation) sister's child; Italian (dialectal) maistru 'teacher' can be used from pupil to teacher as well as vice versa. A detailed description of the inversion phenomena known to us is given in 4.2 below. The connotations of address inversion, in general, appear to be those of intimacy and authority (cf. 4.2.4), which is not in agreement with the Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford interpretation of reciprocity. In Dari, the Afghan variety of Persian, there seems to be an inclination toward reciprocating or echoing in the use of address variants. Our interview data on Dari indicate that the KT lala 'elder brother' is frequently used by speakers of lower social status to socially superior male addressees, e.g., from rural speakers to urban ones, from waiters to customers. The seniority implied in the KT need not correspond to the real age relationship, it rather signals social superiority. Being addressed as lala, the superior can reciprocate the term — without intending to express superiority, but as an imitation of what the other had used. One informant explained that lala usage was so typical of certain groups of speakers and so closely associated with their linguistic behavior that he addressed them the same way in return, thus adjusting to the others' habits. This might be regarded as another case of inversion, with the KT lala having turned into a status term. Apart from that,

34 Aspects of address theory the usual KT inversion occurs in Dari, though with minor frequency and consistency (cf. 4.2). Another case of reciprocation, possibly inversion, is reported in Foster (1964), though interpreted from quite a different angle. Foster describes address behavior in the Spanish-speaking Mexican village of Tzintzuntzan, where selection of address variants on the whole appears to be status-determined: higher status addressees (higher in age or social position) receive forms like the V pronoun usted, KTs, titles, or honorifics (Don/Doña + names). Age mates and juniors receive intimate forms such as the Τ pronoun tú and given names, if this does not severely interfere with the social positions. But there are certain exceptions to the general regularities which do not fit into the status principle. Indians, although considered socially inferior, are addressed with usted and Don/Doha. Because of their inferior position, Indians can be expected to use similar respectful forms themselves — Foster does not mention this — so that symmetry of address would be the probable outcome. Foster suggests the explanation that respectful address towards Indians serves as a means to keep one's distance. This is necessary, according to Foster, because of their inferior position and because of the liberty Indians enjoy in Tzintzuntzan houses, in order to prevent claims of intimacy. 4 But the distant address used with Indians might as well be interpreted as an instance of assimilation or echoing, or possibly of inversion. One is here reminded of status term inversion, since the variants appropriate for the superiors are given back to the inferiors. That the inverted terms are adjusted to sex of addressee is not quite uncommon in inversion (cf. 4.2). However, further information on the Tzintzuntzan address habits would be desirable in order to determine whether inversion, assimilation, or the signaling of distance underly this usage. No matter which hypothesis is preferred in the Tzintzuntzan case, the fact remains that there are address systems with a tendency, or at least option, to establish symmetry in the context of social or age differences by reciprocating a (usually superior) term. This phenomenon is neither derivable nor predictable from the

4. The use of the V pronoun to cats and dogs in Tzintzuntzan is likewise explained as a prevention of exaggerated closeness (cf. 2.2.8).

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address

35

"classical" conception of symmetry and reciprocity. It is no solution, either, to assume that in inversion, status difference is "translated" into a degree of distance with mutual use of respectful, i.e., distant forms. As is elaborated in 4.2.4, address inversion is a sign of intimacy rather than a sign of estrangement caused by status differences.

2.2.5 A reformulation of "rules" The above observations (2.2.1-2.2.4) require a revision and reformulation of the rules of address which were indicated by Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford and repeated in many subsequent publications. Instead of clinging to a narrow interpretation of reciprocity/nonreciprocity, etc., greater validity would probably be gained by making more open statements such as the following one: Whenever variants expressing intimacy, juniority, low social status, or inferiority are employed, they can signal — it not mutual intimacy — juniority, low status, or inferiority of either speaker or addressee (or both).

This statement can account for the usual asymmetry (e.g., Τ pronoun as intimate or low-status variant being used downwards), but it also covers inverted use of a junior KT or low-status term as well as the sociolectal use of such variants (e.g., sociolectal use of Τ from a low-status speaker to any addressee, even a superior). A formulation of this kind has a wider application because it does not predict either the direction of use or reciprocal/nonreciprocal use. Thus, sociolectal or any other kind of variation and address inversion are in accord with the "rule" and need not be regarded as deviations. A counterpart to the above rule is the following one: Whenever variants expressing distance, seniority, high social status, or superiority are employed, they can signal — if not mutual distance — seniority, high status, or superiority of either speaker or addressee (or both).

This statement would be valid for the "normal" nonreciprocity (e.g., title as a distant or high-status variant being used upwards), but also for the inversion of senior KTs or superior-status terms

36

Aspects of address theory

as well as for the sociolectal use of the respective variants (e.g., sociolectal use of V by upper-class speakers or educated speakers). Consequent to variation and to inversion, the selection of a variant can be as characteristic of speaker as of addressee, so that a certain term can become a symbol of a certain status or other feature, whether used by, or to, one of the speakers. In the context of variation, intimate or low-status variants tend to be characteristic of socially inferior, rural, or young speakers, e.g., Τ pronoun, KTs, first names. But this tendency is by no means universal. Firstly, there are group-specific variants which do not fit into a gradation of intimate and distant, low and high status (e.g., the Finnish dialectal V hän, Tigrinya regional use of a V2 variant), and secondly, this tendency is dependent on the stage of development in the respective address system. The Τ pronoun, e.g., can be typical of young speakers only, if a V pronoun has already been established in former generations. At a former stage, as long as the V pronoun is new and not yet firmly established, it may be the V form which is modern, progressive, and more frequent with young speakers, while the older ones stick to a universal T. Similarly, a frequent use of the V pronoun can be characteristic of lower class speakers, when an extension of Τ has become fashionable in the upper classes. In the context of inversion, on the other hand, it tends to be a senior or superior term which is reciprocated, but this is not universal, either. There are instances, though not too many, of the reciprocation of junior or low-status terms (cf. 4.2.2). Hence, the two statements above cannot, and are not intended to, represent universal rules. They merely offer an extension of or supplement to the existing principles of address theory. It seems that one must be content with widespread tendencies instead of universal rules. Thus, Brown/Gilman and Brown/Ford cannot be reproached with presenting a theory which does not explain any instance of address in the languages of the world. They can only be reproached with having based their conclusions on a somewhat limited set of data — limited as to the number of languages included, but most of all, as to the standardization implied.

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address

37

2.2.6 Constellations with multiple options of address The applicability of a flow chart presentation or of the symmetry/ asymmetry concepts to address systems is further restricted by the fact that in many languages a variety of forms is selectable in a given constellation. In European and Western languages, the set of selectable pronominal and nominal forms for a given context is restricted, and the variants in question often exclude one another. So symmetry/asymmetry are easy to determine, and the outcome of the selection process is easy to predict. In German, e.g., the nominal repertory for addressing acquaintances comprises first names, nicknames, Herr/Frau(Frl. ) 'Mr/Mrs (Miss)' + last names, last names alone, and maybe (Herr/Frau +) titles + last names as basic variants. Once an address pattern is established in a given dyad, address behavior remains rather rigid, and speakers do not switch from first name to Herr/Frau + last name and back again. In the case of unknown addressees, at least adults, there is hardly any nominal form which could easily be used. In other languages, however, the repertory of nominal forms may be so comprehensive that it offers several variants for one and the same dyad, variants which differ but slightly and may serve to express momentary moods or intentions. Thus, address selection is much less rigid — speakers may switch from one utterance to the next, as suits their respective purposes. As a consequence, there may be instances of asymmetrical address simply because two speakers, with identical options open to them, prefer different variants at a given moment. Just as well there may be instances of symmetry because speakers with otherwise different options happened to select the variant they have in common. Collecting data by means of observing natural communication or by interviewing informants, one may thus obtain misleading results, as long as the options for both speakers of a dyad are not known in their totality. Examples of this can be found in our interview data on Pashto, an East Iranian language, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. One part of each interview deals with address behavior among neighbors and includes the question of address to a neighbor of approximately the same age as the speaker. For this constellation, one informant mentioned seven noninal variants which he used himself: ( 1 ) first name, (2) KT (vro.r 'brother'), (3) malgaraej 'friend, comrade, mate', (4) afna; (same as

38 Aspects of address theory 3), (5) rafl.qx (same), (6) an4iva:l (same), (7) da F zuj 'son of F' (F = reference to addressee's father). All of these variants could be directed to the informant as well, and for any addressee of the category "male neighbor, same age" switching between several of these forms occurred. Thus, an observer could happen to record a piece of communication with one speaker of the constellation using vro.r 'brother' and the other first name, which looks like an asymmetrical address relation. But this "asymmetry" may simply result from the speakers' different preferences at a given moment, while they otherwise have the same variants at their disposal. On the other hand, two such neighbors could be heard exchanging vro. r 'brother', which seems to indicate a symmetrical relationship. It may escape the observer's notice or knowledge that only one of the two occasionally uses da F zuj, which signals social superiority of the addressee and introduces an asymmetrical tendency into the dyad. This may suffice to illustrate that, in languages with variable address behavior and with numerous variants, address relationships are not easily classified as symmetrical or asymmetrical and that the outcome of the selection process is difficult to predict. The motives for preferring afna: to rafi.qx in the Pashto example seem to be so subtle, if detectable at all, that a rule can hardly be set up.

2.2.7 Do variants of address constitute a single hierarchy (scale)? The dimensions of (1) status and (2) distance/intimacy (or power and solidarity) are concepts well-known from the theory of Brown/ Gilman and Brown/Ford. Variants of address, it seems, can all be arranged on corresponding scales, i.e., scales of status and of distance. The entries (the variants) on the two scales being identical — the Τ pronoun, e.g., is represented on both scales and has a "low" position on either —, they could even be summarized in a single "respect scale", with "respect" including grades of distance and of status. Dealing with a number of address systems, however, doubt arises whether variants of address, which belong to the same system of free forms or of bound forms, indeed constitute such a common hierarchy and operate on two dimensions only. If not, it becomes difficult to compare forms belonging to different scales and to

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 39 evaluate them under the aspect of symmetry/asymmetry. It can hardly be determined, then, whether they should be regarded as equivalent or different, or which one should be assigned a higher or lower degree of respect. This problem is particularly likely to turn up when special forms of an address system are used for special purposes. (1) In English, there is such a special variant with ambiguous respect degree. It is the former Τ pronoun thou, which (in the standard language) has gone out of use in everyday situations, but which may still occur in religious contexts (such as prayers) as address to God, or in poetry (Brown/Gilman 1960:253, SchmidtHidding 1954:55). From the standpoint of application, thou appears to have a high degree of respect, its typical addressee being God and its typical stylistic context being prayer or poetry, i.e., high style, which is not used in "normal" communication. From a formal and historical standpoint, however, thou may be regarded as implying a low degree of respect, having originated as second person singular pronoun (T pronoun) and having been so much restricted to intimate or low status addressees that it was finally impossible to use it at all (Finkenstaedt 1963). The remaining traces of thou do not, of course, present a real problem in analyzing modern standard English address behavior. There will hardly be any dyad with a thou —you relationship. But from a theoretical view, thou is an interesting variant, since it cannot easily be placed into a respect scale, and its status compared to you is difficult to define in terms of a hierarchy. (2) Another example can be taken from Jordanian Arabic again. In Arabic, as in a couple of other languages, the religious title of Hadsi, fem. hache (hassi[hazse) 'pilgrim' serves as a mode of address. Among acquaintances, fiadsi/hadse is used, if the addressee is known to have undertaken the pilgrimage to Mecca. Among strangers, Aacfj//-e can be employed as an address term for old people in general. Suppose, two Jordanian speakers, neighbors of roughly the same age (50 years), exchange the following free forms of address: A Β

> B: Hadsi > A: doktoir + first name.

A calls Β 7iad3Í, because he knows that Β once made the pilgrimage

40

Aspects of address theory

and thus has a claim to this form. Β calls A dokto. r + first name, because A is the holder of a doctor's degree. A has not been to Mecca, so that Hadsi cannot be applied anyway. The two are not close enough to exchange first names without hesitation. Both, however, use the Τ pronoun (second person singular masculine, inta). How should this asymmetry be evaluated? Which one of the speakers is marked as superior by the variants of address exchanged? Or are they equivalent? This can hardly be determined. On the one hand, it is impossible for any of the two free forms to be used reciprocally, for both require their receiver to actually occupy the position expressed in the term, pilgrim or doctor (or at least high educational degree). On the other hand, 7iad3i is a variant which can hardly be ascribed a definite position on the respect scale which could possibly set up for the free forms of address in Jordanian Arabic. Such a respect scale would roughly look like this: junior KT first name inverted senior KT

ego gen. KT

abu/imS

senior KT

title (+name)5

sejid+name

intimate

^ distant ^ increasing degree of respect

^

Note: abu/im S 'father of S (son's name)/mother of S'; sejid 'Mr' (female equivalent not used quite correspondingly). The variant Hadsiftiadse can be substituted for almost any form on the scale, with the only restriction that Hadsij-e is infrequent with very young addressees because of the limited probability of their Iiad3i status. Apart from that, anyone who is aTíad3Í can be addressed as such. Thus it is doubtful which position Tiadziftiadze would occupy on the scale or whether it should be included in the scale at all. And in the above example, it remains doubtful how the asymmetry in the neighbor's dyad should be evaluated. In the case of Hadzifhadze use to unknown addressees, the same problem arises. In Jordanian Arabic, senior K T s can be used to older unknown addressees, e.g., cammi 'my (paternal) uncle',

5. These are only the variants used among acquaintances; the vast amount of variants and minor differentiations has been simplified for the present purposes. The scale is based on the Jordanian interview data.

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address 41 xa. lti 'my (maternal) aunt'. But also TiadzijTiadze can be employed, if the addressee is about 60 years old or more. Since both variants, KT and Tiad3i/-e, imply seniority or being old, they could be placed on the "+" end of a respect scale. But it is hard to decide whether there is a difference between them and which kind of difference. On the whole, the position of the pilgrim term in the Jordanian Arabic address system is ambiguous. (3) There is another address variant in Jordanian Arabic, which cannot be placed into a single one-dimensional scale. In the system of bound forms (cf. 3.3.2.2) there are several pronominal and nominal variants, e.g., the dialectal Τ pronoun inta/inti, the "V pronoun" Hadertakfhadertik (lit. ' y ° u r presence'). But when total strangers are communicating for the first time, they can use indirect address (nominal variant + third person verb), which signals distance in terms of not knowing each other. Indirect address does not otherwise function as a symbol of respect or superior status according to our data. Aspects of status can indeed be expressed within the indirect construction by choosing an appropriate nominal variant, e.g., es-sejid 'sir' vs. el-ax 'brother', but using indirect address instead of other bound variants is not in itself governed by considerations of status. The opposition indirect address vs. other bound forms seems to operate on a distance dimension, but not on a status dimension. It is thus impossible to compare indirect address to any other bound variant. This situation contradicts the potential universal suggested by Brown/Ford (1961:380), the linkage of intimacy and condescension, distance and deference. In their formulation of the universal, Brown/Ford did not claim any intimate form to express condescension as well, or — more important here — any distant form to express deference. The Arabic example shows, however, that the distance scale and the status scale are not necessarily of parallel or identical shape; they can constitute separate dimensions. The standard Arabic second person singular pronoun anta/anti serving, as explained above (2.2.2), as a mark of speakers' education and status may be regarded as operating on yet another dimension : the dimension of self-presentation. Asymmetry, when consisting of a contrast of forms from different scales, is more complicated to evaluate than asymmetry with different forms from the same scale — or from scales which consist of the same variants.

42 A spects of address theory (4) In American varieties of Spanish, as is well-known, the second person singular pronoun tú has largely disappeared and has given way to the former second person plural pronoun vos (at least in the nominative case). Vos is now Τ pronoun and is opposed to the V pronoun usted. The older Τ pronoun tú, however, is not quite obsolete. In those regions where voseo is dominant tú is more or less artificially kept alive by official institutions such as school instruction, language planning, or written style (Gottfried 1970: 35f, 410· Under these circumstances, tú is associated with formality and/or official context of speech. At the same time speakers can use tú as a marker of education, of knowing how to speak "correctly" — although this is sometimes considered affected or even effeminate behavior (Kiddle 1953, Gottfried 1970:35). In its function as a style marker, situation marker, or self-presentation marker, tú operates not only on the status scale (contrast to usted), and on the distance scale (T vs. V), but also on others which might be classified as "formality scale" and "self-presentation scale" (opposition to vos). A tú — vos asymmetry, which might occur between speakers of different social background, is of a different kind than the usual Τ - V asymmetry. On the whole, the underlying forces of address behavior thus cannot always be summarized into the dimensions of status and distance.

2.2.8 Special functions of "V pronouns" When introducing the symbols "T" and "V", Brown/Gilman (1960:254) briefly define Τ as the "familiar" pronoun and V as the "polite" 6 pronoun of address. These definitions are probably so little elaborated as to avoid predictions on the status of T/V pronouns in any given system of address, for their status is dependent on the language-specific interrelations of address variants. The present section is going to deal with special functions of V pronouns which do not accord even with this scant characteriza-

6. The problematic notion of "politeness" is treated in 2.3 and shall not here be discussed.

Criticism and modifications of the theory of address

43

tion of V and which cannot be derived from the common notions of Τ and V. Whether an aspect of "politeness" is associated with a V pronoun already becomes dubious, whenever there are several V pronouns in a language, or whenever the system of bound forms exceeds a simple T/V dichotomy. In standard Rumanian, the Vj pronoun dumneata is frequently used to inferiors and hence does not represent a convincing case of politeness. The truly polite form (used for distant superiors) would be dumneavoasträ, V2 (Lombard 1974:121). In standard Portuguese, the V pronoun voce is not particularly polite, when opposed to third person "verbal" address or indirect address (Meier 1951:108, Kilbury-Meißner 1982:123). It is frequently associated with inferiority or juniority on the addressee's part (cf. 3.2.1). Hence, defining V pronouns on the basis of politeness is not always adequate. But the above examples are still explainable, when the interrelations of variants are taken into consideration. There are other types of V usage which are much more surprising and produce symmetries or asymmetries of curious kinds. (1) In Spanish, at least American varieties of Spanish, the V pronoun usted can be used in addressing animals such as cats and dogs (Foster 1964, Vargas 1974:28). This is hardly explainable on the basis of the power semantic or the solidarity semantic — cats and dogs are not social superiors, and distance or formality is low. Foster's (1964:114) explanation sticks to the concepts of status/ power and distance, but in an unusual way: With the help of usted, Foster suggests, the speakers remind themselves that cats and dogs are not "members of the family". Similarly surprising is the fact that children as well can receive usted in American Spanish. According to Almasov (1974:57) usted is "the only generally accepted way to address children" in Costa Rica, while Τ (vos) is used only for scolding them. Vargas (1974:28) adds, again with reference to Costa Rica, that usted from parent to child may occur in the context of giving advice, but that it has no connotation of anger or contempt. It is a mark of intimacy, which is found in other close relationships as well: between spouses and fiancés, among siblings, and between friends of different sex. Vargas describes the connotations of this V usage as confidence, closeness, sincerity, and informality. The same kind of V usage is found in Argentinian Spanish (Gottfried 1970:45f),

44

A spects of address theory

where parents address children with usted and spouses exchange usted as an expression of tenderness, intimacy, and affection. In a footnote, Mathieu (1982:615) briefly mentions the exchange of usted between siblings and friends in Bogotá (Columbia) where tú, however, is used to parents. The power semantic does not account for this phenomenon — the receivers of V, here, are inferior/junior or equal -, neither does the solidarity semantic — the relationships concerned are especially intimate. Due to this application of usted, unexpected cases of V - V symmetry can arise, since parents frequently receive usted in Costa Rica (Vargas 1974: 20). Or even asymmetry comes into being when parents, addressed with vos (Τ), use the intimate usted to a child. (2) The Spanish V usage just described has parallels in Portuguese. According to our Portuguese informants, animals can be addressed with V (vocey as well as with tu (Τ), voce implying affection. Moreover, children receive voce or indirect address (with first name or o menino ¡a menina 'the boy/girl') in addition to tu (Meier 1951:107, Svennung 1958:1550, and voce can be used to emphasize closeness in intimate relationships, e.g., between spouses (Meier 1951:108).® (3) A similar pattern of V usage is described for certain dialects of French. Joly (1973:40) reports that dogs can be addressed as vous (V) in Belgium. In Northern regions of France, an older sister uses vous to a younger one, but says tu to the other family members. According to Jucquois (1977), vous not only has the usual functions of a V pronoun in Belgian French, but can also express a higher degree of familiarity than tu. This is how vous is used from parent to child and from older sibling to younger sibling. It is, however, answered by tu. The above patterns of address display a special kind of V application, in which the "V" fulfills a particular and unexpected function, the expression of high degrees of intimacy (between 7. It should be kept in mind, though, that the status of the Portuguese "V" is somewhat different from the status of Spanish usted 8. Kilbury-Meißner-(1982:123) has two cases of intimate voce - to wife and to sister — among her data; in this context she also refers to Cintra (1972: 40ff).

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert)

45

peers or towards juniors/inferiors). This does not at all harmonize with the characteristics otherwise attributed to the V form. V usage of this kind also interferes with the interpretation of Τ — V asymmetry or V - V symmetry. For the purpose of analysis, of course, the problem could be, and should be, solved by differentiating according to the contradictory functions. The "familiar vous" could be regarded as a variant of its own, independent of the "distant vous" (the real V pronoun). Although the familiar variant happens to be homonymous with the V form, they should not be considered entirely identical and should not be designated by the symbol "V" without further distinction. Under these conditions, the notions of symmetry and reciprocity would not be as heavily affected or disturbed. This is the way Vargas (1974:28) treats the two functions of usted, designating the familiar variant as "el otro usted" 'the other usted\ But even if the concepts of the V pronoun, of symmetry, etc., can be preserved and analysis facilitated by this means, the fact remains conspicuous that markers of intimacy appear in the shape of the V pronouns. Since this phenomenon is found in more than one language, it cannot be mere coincidence, and it must be asked, whether there is anything in the nature of V pronouns or other "distant" bound forms which qualifies them for this function.

2.3 When polite forms are impolite, or what politeness actually is (Friederike Braun/Klaus Schubert) 9

In the preceding sections, the terms politeness, polite have been used again and again, as is common when forms of address are discussed. The question of politeness often arises when there is interlingual contact, e.g., in foreign language instruction. A German speaker of Norwegian, e.g., may find it funny or superfluous to say Takk for maten 'Thanks for the meal' before leaving the table. There are a number of politeness formulas in Norwegian which do

9. This section is a modified version of Braun/Schubert (1986).

46

Aspects of address theory

not have equivalents in German or English (cf. White 1979). A question like How are y oui can also be irritating in interlingual contact, since it is a post-greeting routine in some languages and need not be answered (at least not honestly), while being an expression of truly personal concern in others. Politeness phenomena of this kind are often compared (which language is most polite?), and lead to conclusions like: "The Polish are very polite, they always use titles, and they kiss a lady's hand when saying hello." or "In America, everyone uses first names. Salespersons address customers as honey or buddy, and people generally are very informal." Apart from the fact that conclusions like these are much too generalizing, and that monolingual native speakers do not normally feel impolite or overpolite in adhering to the rules valid in their community, the question arises, what politeness actually consists of. Forms of address are a good example of politeness expressions, for the system of address appears to be elaborated in all languages. We have never heard of any language which does not possess several address variants, at least nominal ones. The following paragraphs will deal with (1) the ambiguity of the term politeness, and (2) the (formal) linguistic markers of politeness in forms of address, and the motives for using them.

2.3.1 The ambiguity of politeness Many languages have two pronouns of address (or more, but that will be neglected for the moment), one of which is usually called "intimate" and the other one "polite", e.g., in dictionaries or textbooks. This is the case with German du and Sie, French tu and vous, Spanish tú and usted, etc. Such labeling is vague, of course, for the respective culture determines where and when linguistic politeness is expected. But even within one culture, a characterization as "polite" pronoun is not exact, because the use of a form thus classified need not always be polite while the other pronoun, implying the feature "- polite", may be the really polite one in certain contexts. 2.3.1.1 Impolite use of politeness forms The classification of Spanish usted (V) as a polite pronoun does

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert) 47 not always apply. Marin (1972:904) explains that students of Spanish should not extend the use of usted as far as is sometimes, for safety's sake, recommended in grammars: In talking to peers, usted sounds artificial and demonstrates only idiomatical ignorance. Although one should expect that the use of a polite pronoun can never do any harm, Marin is right in emphasizing that usted may be inappropriate rather than respectful or cultivated, depending on the context. • Moreover, Marin mentions a type of situation where usted is devoid of any intention of politeness — a father addressing a child as usted when strictly admonishing him/her (Marin 1972:902). In this American Spanish type of usage, the V pronoun signals an authority-laden situation, i.e., authority on the speaker's part, and an unfavorable atmosphere, which does not at all agree with defining usted as a polite pronoun. 1 0 Solé (1978:946) describes a similar usage, where usted, directed from parent to child or from husband to wife, expresses hostility, anger, or rage as well as difference in authority. Portuguese "polite" bound forms of address such as the pronoun voce or indirect address with o senhor/a senhora 'Mr/Mrs, sir/madam' can, according to Luft (1957:195), also serve as markers of irony, scorn, and disdain between speakers who normally use T. Somewhat different is the case in those dialects of Dutch, where the old second person singular pronoun (dow or doe) has been preserved, but where the plural pronoun (/-/, ie, gae, etc.) is also used for individual addressees. When there is an opposition of a second person singular pronoun and a second person plural pronoun in address, the singular form mostly is the original and intimate form, whereas the plural was invented for expressing politeness. 11 Ginneken (1934:290) confirms this assumption with regard to the

10. This "angry usted" apparently is not identical with the "familiar usted" referred to in 2.2.8, though occurring in similar constellations. The connotations of the familiar usted are entirely different from the above, and, according to Gottfried (1970:45f), confusion of the two types of usted is impossible because of the unequivocal contexts and intonation features. 11. An exception to this "rule" is the tú/vos opposition in some voseovarieties of Spanish, due to the special history of these forms, as will be elaborated below.

48

Aspects of address theory

Dutch dialects. In addition, selection of singular vs. plural address in these dialects is frequently governed by the factor "sex of addressee", so that women tend to receive the singular pronoun, and men the plural pronoun (cf. Ginneken 1934:290, Vossen 1958:136). 12 Should this mean that males receive a variant with the feature "+ polite" and females a variant with the feature "- polite"? This unpleasant conclusion is rejected, e.g., by Ginneken (1934:290) and Vossen (1958:140). They explain the plural pronoun used to males as a mark of roughness, vehemence, and size and the singular pronoun used to females as a mark of dear, tender, and small features without any lack of respect. This appears contradictory, since an actually polite pronoun is now described as expressing less favorable characteristics, while the "non-polite" form is regarded as properly polite and positive. It is easy to think of German examples, where the "polite" Sie (V) would lose its connotations of politeness; thus, a student addressing his/her fellow-students with Sie would be regarded as queer, not as exceptionally polite. Within the family, a mother addressed with Sie would consider this a joke and not a polite compliment. 2.3.1.2 Polite use of "non-polite" forms Just as a polite form of address can take negative connotations, a "non-polite" form can, vice versa, express respect, and solemnity. Almasov (1974:57) describes corresponding instances of Spanish tú (Τ): address to deceased persons, where tú expresses respect and awe, two priests addressing each other as tû, when officiating in church, tú in religious parlance, and in addressing royalty. Similar examples from Danish are given in Jacobsen (1949). Among other things, Jacobsen mentions a speech made to the king of Denmark in 1920, where the speaker's switch to du (Τ) was not felt to be impolite at all, but was considered excellent style (Jacobsen 1949: 86). With regard to the Dutch dialects with the doe/i-j contrast, a positive interpretation of doe has already been referred to above. 12. Although different authors do not agree on the degree of priority of this factor, a correlation of pronoun distribution and sex of addressee is almost always described, if only as a tendency.

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert)

49

This positive evaluation is strongly emphasized in Ginneken (1934:291), according to whom singular address is part of the friendly, nice, warm, and amiable behavior appropriate towards women. Since the plural, on the other hand, is no longer polite in the usual sense, Ginneken speaks of a re-evaluation. Buursink (1950:89), though not referring to a sex-governed distribution of the pronouns, confirms the positive view of address in the singular. Similarly, a German speaker would not accept to be called "nonpolite" when addressing parents, uncles, aunts, or parents-in-law with du, as is usual. Even nonreciprocal du used by a superior can be perceived as a mark of appreciation more flattering than the V pronoun. When informants are evaluating address variants in their language, they often designate a certain form as polite (e.g., a Mr -variant like Turkish beyefendi), because it is used to superiors. But considering a form used to inferiors (e.g., a kinship term like Turkish amca 'uncle'), they often call this variant polite as well ("Why, I treat him like my own uncle?!") and really experience it that way. Again, certain forms are classified as polite, but use of the contrasting "non-polite" variants is claimed to be polite as well. 2.3.1.3 The meanings of politeness The contradiction, of course, arises from the different meanings of politeness, which are often not clearly distinguished: (1) Forms of address are called and considered polite when they are adequate 13 for the situation. Thus, a form of address which is appropriate to the relationship of speaker and addressee, and which is in accord with the rules of the community, or at least those of the dyad, will always be regarded as adequately polite. Vice versa, any form of address not corresponding to the relationship or to the rules can be perceived as impolite - no matter which variant is used for a break of the rules. Some emphasis, though, should be placed on the word can, for it need not be im-

13. "Adequacy" here means the same as "normalcy" or "naturalness" in Winter (1980): frequency of occurrence in a given context, here — in a given dyad.

50 A spects of address theory polite t o address someone spontaneously with a form deviant from the habitual one. In a paragraph on expressive pronoun usage, Brown/Gilman (1960:274) point t o the fact that a break of address habits in a dyad can be a sign of appreciation and respect: The most common use of the expressive V, in the early materials, is that of the master who is exceptionally pleased with the work of a servant and elevates him pronominally to match his esteem.

A violation of address norms, therefore, does not necessarily lead to impoliteness. Whether a spontaneous change of address is to be interpreted as appreciating or as offensive, can be gathered from the context, from the intonation, etc. The switch t o the Τ pronoun in addressing the king of Denmark reported in Jacobsen (1949), is an example of a violation of norms which was not perceived as impolite. However, it should be noted that all variants can acquire an impolite meaning when constituting a break of the rules, and the offensive violation of the norms appears to be more frequent than the appreciating one. (2) When a form of address is classified as a polite form without regard t o the context of situation, "politeness" usually refers to the variant's place in the respective address system. Within a system, different variants can be ascribed different degrees of politeness according to their use (to superiors or inferiors, t o distant or intimate addressees). Corresponding to the (high or low) degree of respect expressed, a variant can or cannot then be called a "polite" form. Formally, too, polite variants of this kind have certain characteristics, which will be discussed in 2.3.2. A classification like this one, however, does not imply that the respective variant should be regarded as polite in any situation. The above examples have already indicated that politeness may simply mean adequate behavior: Dutch doe (dow, do) as used to females, German du to family members, Spanish tú to deceased persons, in religious and ceremonial speech are felt to be polite, because they are the normal forms of address in these contexts and imply adherence to the rules. They can even have solemn connotations (Spanish tú), which the V pronoun is lacking. Correspondingly, "polite" pronouns can be offensive or acquire negative connotations when they are not in agreement with the

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert) 51 situation. Thus, Spanish usted can be an indicator of anger and authoritativeness when tú is the normal everyday form of address in a dyad. Naarding (1936:306) explains that, in a dialect of Dutch, anger disdain can be expressed by a switch from do (singular) to i-j (plural) when addressing females, and by a switch from i-j to do when addressing males. In expressive switching, particularly, there are instances of offensive address with very "polite" forms. Thus, German indirect address — an extreme of politeness - can serve as an expression of anger between speakers who are very close: Der Herr Doktor haben wohl wieder keine Zeit zum Abwaschen? 'Mr doctor apparently haven't got the time for doing the dishes again?' (third person plural) In discussing depreciatory address in Brazilian Portuguese, Luft (1957) demonstrates that depreciation is always expressed by a violation of norms. If several address variants can be counted as normal and adequate in a given constellation, they can all be regarded as polite. In German, an employer often has the option to either address an employee with du (Τ) — especially if the latter is younger — in order to express a personal relationship, or to leave it at Sie (V) if a business-like atmosphere is dominant. Since both alternatives lie within the range of appropriate and normal behavior, and since du may absolutely have positive connotations here, both can be considered polite. Impolite would be a spontaneous and derogatory deviation from the habit once established. In his survey on pronouns of address, Head (1978:154, footnote 2) also points to the fact that a "polite" pronoun can be aggressive, insulting, authoritative, or simply non-familiar in situations where a Τ pronoun is common. Another definition on politeness, which is based on the acceptance of rules, is found in Fraser/Nolen (1981:96). The authors first describe how a kind of "conversational contract" is set up between the collocutors, regulating rights and obligations in the framework of the conversation. Politeness is then defined with regard to the "conversational contract": Having provided an idea of what a conversational contract might involve, let us now turn to the notion of politeness. In general, speakers operate

52

Aspects of address theory within the terms of the conversational contract and, in doing so, act in a way which we call polite. To be polite is to abide by the rules of the relationship. A speaker becomes impolite just in cases where he violates one or more of the contractual terms.

Although Fraser and Nolen do not refer to address behavior here, their definition may be applied to forms of address as well. Politeness in its second meaning, referring to the "high" position of an address variant in the system, can be gathered from the way the variant is used. When a variant A is predominantly used to superiors and non-intimates, a variant Β on the other hand to inferiors and intimates (to take a simple case), A can be placed higher than Β on a politeness scale (or respect, or distance scale).14 In this sense, a pronoun like German Sie, French vous, Spanish usted is classified as a polite pronoun. Of course, there are systems more comprehensive than these, including more than two levels, e.g. Rumanian

dumneavoastrà

Hungarian

ön

V2

dumneata

maga

Vj

tu

te

Τ

increasing degree of politeness Silva (1976:364) describes the gradation of the eleven Sinhalese pronouns by setting up a hierarchy of politeness of the same kind. Speaking of "polite" forms in the sense of this second definition, there is no reference to any actual situation, where the usual form is the polite one, but only to the place in an abstract system. There was no intention of giving preference to one or the other definition of "politeness" here. But one should be aware of the fact that the different definitions should be kept apart so as to avoid misunderstandings or contradictions. A form of address classified as "polite" (definition 2) should not suddenly be called "impolite" (definition 1) when a special situation is discussed. The above definitions of politeness are not the only ones. Occa14. The difficulty of including all the variants of a system into a single hierarchy has been dealt with in 2.2.7. In the present context, we concentrate on variants which can be ascribed a position on the scale, but we do not presuppose that any variant can.

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert) 53 sionally, the selection of a variant with the highest position in the system from a set of situationally possible forms is called polite. In Germany, e.g., a secretary could address her employer as Herr Hansen 'Mr Hansen' or Herr Dr. Hansen 'Mr Doctor Hansen' — if this is not officially regulated (and if Mr Hansen has a doctor's degree). According to the definition of politeness just outlined, Herr Dr. Hansen would be more polite due to its higher position in the system. But again, the principle of adequacy could be applied: if the tone of communication between the secretary and Mr Hansen is formal and, especially, if Mr Hansen is known to expect the title, Herr Dr. Hansen would be the adequate and polite form. But if the atmosphere is relaxed and titles are not cared for, Herr Hansen would be the adequate and polite variant, and Herr Dr. Hansen could be used ironically.

2.3.2 What makes a linguistic expression polite? When linguistic forms, classified as polite according to their position in the system (definition 2), are investigated, the question arises, which linguistic feature actually makes them polite. An answer to this question presupposes an answer to the more basic question, why polite expressions are used at all. 2.3.2.1

A classification of linguistic markers of politeness

For discussing the motives of being polite, it is useful to gain an overview of the linguistic forms concerned. In interlingual comparison, Altmann and RiSka (1966:2) set up five classes of politeness expressions: graphical, phonetical, lexical, grammatical, and stylistical ones. With regard to subgroups of lexical, grammatical, and stylistical markers of politeness, Altmann and RiSka (1966:3) introduce an intersting threefold distinction - that of genuine politeness elements, polite equivalents, and non-genuine politeness elements. Non-genuine politeness elements, according to their terminology, are expressions which can be used with or without connotations of politeness, undergoing a shift in meaning when used as politeness elements. An example of this group is German Sie (V) which, in its genuine meaning, denotes several third persons, but refers to one or several addressees when functioning

54 Aspects of address theory as an expression of politeness. Non-genuine politeness expressions thus retain the same form, whether used politely or non-politely, but their meaning differs in more than the mere component of politeness. Polite equivalents are polite synonyms of other expressions. Such a pair is, e.g., German essen and speisen (both 'eat'), English tired and fatigued. Genuine politeness expressions are expressions with a meaning of politeness, which lack a nonpolite synonym, e.g., English Mr/Mrs, German Herr/Frau, or the Japanese honorific prefix o- (cf. Fel'dman 1967). Thus, politeness expressions are characterized either by grammatical shift or by having a certain meaning (as the etymology of Mr/Mrs and Herr/ Frau shows), which may, however, fade in the course of time. 2.3.2.2

Why do people use linguistic expressions of

politeness?

For explaining why politeness expressions are used, a psychological reason, above all, can be presented. Use of third person, i.e., a form of reference, is a less direct appeal to the addressee than address with a second person singular pronoun would be. Similarly, the plural may be interpreted as an avoidance of direct address in the singular. These grammatical shifts can be regarded as attempts to keep a distance from the addressee. Wundt (1922:47) considers this a main cause for the shifted use of politeness expressions. The fact that it is felt to be impolite to approach a collocutor linguistically by a direct form of address is, from a psychological viewpoint, traced back ultimately to fear of castration by Silverberg (1940:513f)· A similar thought, though not as extreme, is pursued by Brown and Levinson (1978). They proceed from the idea that people in interaction are mainly interested in preserving "face". "Face" is defined in two parts by Brown and Levinson, a negative one - the wish for unrestricted freedom of action - , and a positive one — the wish that one's own wishes at least partly correspond to those of others (Brown/Levinson 1978: 67). A speaker's attempts to pay respect to the addressee's unrestricted freedom of action, as expressed in formal linguistic politeness, is counted as negative politeness in this sense by Brown/Levinson. They describe negative politeness as mainly avoidance-oriented (1978:75). Avoidance of the direct pronoun of address, among other things, is part of avoiding an undue closeness (1978:136).

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert)

55

2.3.2.3 Means of avoidance If the direct pronoun of address is to be avoided — and this is similar with pronouns of self-reference and of reference — there are three possible solutions. Either another pronoun is grammatically shifted and used for address, or a nominal term of reference is used, or reference to the addressee is avoided completely. The third solution leads to an avoidance of forms of address, e.g., with the help of impersonal or passive constructions (cf. Paulston 1975: 9, Brown/Levinson 1978:75, Schubert 1982:116). The second principle is applied in indirect address, which will be discussed below. The first possibility can be represented by practically any other pronoun than the usual pronoun of address in non-polite usage. The usual form for one addressee is a second person singular pronoun. For several addressees addressed together, it is a second person plural pronoun (or dual, or any other category of number). French vous represents the most common grammatical type of a shifted pronoun of politeness: A second person plural pronoun is directed to a single addressee as a polite pronoun. Classifying a pronoun like vous into the formal category of plural refers to a meaning of actual plurality, which is possible today, but was the only meaning before vous was used as a polite pronoun (Schubert 1985a: 159). Another shift can occur in pronouns of politeness: shift between deictic function and grammatical person, e.g., in the German pronoun of address er, Swedish han, Polish on (all of them third person singular masculine). While the formal categories of person and number count as universale (Greenberg 1963:96) and therefore constitute a potential of expressing politeness in any language (which is, however, not necessarily made use of), some languages have additional categories in their pronominal systems which may serve as politeness markers. Thus, there can be a shift between sex and gender. This occurs in Amharic (only with nonpolite connotations) where the feminine pronoun of address and can be directed to a male and then becomes impolite (Hoben 1976:287; the feminine pronoun of address in Italian, Lei, which is used to both male and female addressees, is not really a case of this sort — though frequently mentioned in this context (cf. Schubert 1985a: 155)). Moreover, several shifts can be combined such as in German Sie or Danish De (both third person plural), which imply a shift in person as well as in number. According to

56

Aspects of address theory

Majtinskaja (1969:152), all the polite pronouns known from any language have originated either from grammatical shift or from a nominal expression. If this is true, then any polite pronoun implies a shift in meaning one way or other. In languages where the subject pronoun is not obligatory the congruent verb form rather than the polite pronoun is often the main bearer of the politeness meaning (Schubert 1984e : 17). 2.3.2.4 A communicative explanation Apart from the psychological explanation according to which polite forms of address are based on avoidance, there is a second type of explanation according to which, above all, grammatical shift in politeness expressions is due to communicative situations "wo diese Ausdrucksweise eine ganz natürliche Erklärung finden kann" (Svennung 1958:18). Grimm (1837:300), and subsequently many others, explained the politeness function of the second person plural pronoun by pointing to the Latin use of vos to the West Roman Emperor which included the East Roman one as well and hence was a consequence of the communicative situation. Svennung (1958:8) gives a similar interpretation, based on situational conditions, for the use of third person forms and indirect address. Old Babylonian letters were formulated just like an oral message is communicated to a messenger, Svennung says that therefore, in the interaction of sender and messenger, the receiver was "quite naturally" referred to in the third person. Grimm's and Svennung's interpretations imply that the grammatical shape of polite variants was motivated, at the beginning, by the special circumstances of communication, then acquired the meaning of politeness and was transferred to situations where the form was understandable only as a mark of politeness, but not in the original deictic function of the words used. In contrast to the aforementioned psychological explanation of Wundt and others, this communicative interpretation does not, however, answer the question why forms of politeness are used at all; it only gives information about why it was these forms which became expressions of politeness. Regarding the enormous spread of the polite plural, which cannot all over the world be due to a "zufällige geschichtliche Tatsache" (Kohz 1982:6) in the Roman Empire and to Latin influence (cf. also Kohz 1982:6, footnote 1), it becomes obvious

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert)

57

that the circumstances of communication mentioned by Grimm and Svennung cannot be the only causes for the use of linguistic markers of politeness. According to Seebold (1983:33), indirect address existed in Indo-European even in Proto-Indo-European time, so that the Old Babylonian epistolary style can hardly be considered the only origin. 2.3.2.5

The meaning of expressions of avoidance

The question why a nominal expression, originally a term of reference, takes the place of a pronoun of address is answered by the psychological explanation above, with the communicative circumstances possibly favoring certain forms. The question, however, as to which kind of nominal expressions appear in indirect address and avoid undue directness, remains to be answered. An examination of indirect address, as occurring in many languages, reveals that the nominal forms used resemble each other in their original meaning. Mostly they are words with the meaning of 'master', 'lord', 'mighty one', 'noble one', 'sublime one', 'senior' as well as abstract nouns such as 'your grace', 'your excellency'. Seebold's investigation (1983:33ff) shows that this characteristic feature of indirect address can be found very early, e.g., in Old Indie, just as it occurs today. In terms of Brown/Levinson, this strikingly consistent choice of words in different languages is an element of negative politeness (1978:75) by signaling the addressee's unrestricted freedom of action. 2.3.2.6

What is new is polite

A possibly universal phenomenon is conspicuous in regard to the introduction of forms of politeness: When a new pronoun of address or indirect address turns up in addition to an existing pronoun of address and refers t o the same person, i.e., the collocutor, but differs from the older one in the degree of politeness, then the new form is always more polite. This observation supports the psychological explanation insofar as it confirms that avoidance or substitution of the pronoun or direct address always is an attempt to keep distance to the addressee. We do not know any language where a new form of address was introduced because of the old pronoun of address being too polite, i.e., where speakers

58

Aspects of address theory

needed a way of approaching their collocutors more closely than was possible with the usual pronoun. There seem to be counter-examples to this observation: In American Spanish, there are speakers for whom the pronoun of address til (second person singular) is more polite than vos (second person plural), but less polite than usted in addressing one person (Weber 1941:107, Kiddle 1953:53). For demonstrating that this is no contradiction to the above observation (the newer form is more polite) it should be noted that the use of politeness expressions occasionally undergoes rapid changes. The German language, for example, produced three or four different pronouns of politeness, which in the course of their history experienced an extension of use and a decrease in degree of respect, as summarized by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1878: col. 73): "was anfangs dem vornehmen eigen war, wird gemein und kommt endlich auch dem geringeren zu." One after another, ihr, er/sie, Sie, and temporarily even derselbe /dieselbe are introduced and spread from the upper classes of society to the lower ones (for details cf. Grimm 1837:298ff). 15 This happens when upper class speakers use such a pronoun to members of lower classes; in a further step the variant is restricted to address among lower class speakers. The pronoun then becomes a symbol of the lower classes, while its degree of respect decreases (as was the case with er/sie, Grimm 1837:308ff). When a polite pronoun has "descended" like this, it can be opposed to a newer form as a non-polite variant. Sometimes, a descending "polite" pronoun completely displaces the old second person singular pronoun. Such was the case with English you and Dutch jij as well as with those varieties of American Spanish where vos is the nonpolite and usted the polite pronoun of address. In the beginning, vos was the Spanish second person plural pronoun and could be directed to a single addreesee (in the tradition of Latin vos) as a polite pronoun. Vos then descended in the respective varieties of Spanish and displaced the original, non-polite tú. The observation of Weber and Kiddle (tú being more polite than vos) regards a later return or re-introduction of tú into the system of address, where (as the more recent form) it is now more polite than the non15. The English term courtesy as well as German Höflichkeit point to the fact that manners originally in use at the court propagated into the lower classes of society.

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert)

59

polite pronoun vos. One might object that tú acquired its prestige by its belonging to the standard variety of Spanish. But this does not affect the argument, for no matter why tú is more polite, what counts is that tú can enter into the address system of vos/usted. only because it is more polite. This "counter-example" thus confirms the observation that a new form of address supplemented to a pronoun not marked as polite is always more polite than the old one. The re-introduction of tú also demonstrates that it is irrelevant whether the new form once played a part in a (geographically or historically remote) variety of the respective language. 2.3.2.7 Polite forms wearing out The example of American Spanish tú and vos leads to the question whether a polite expression retains a polite meaning forever, or whether it can be lost. It has already been mentioned that in many cases it is the upper classes who introduce polite forms of address into a speech community. These forms expand, not only in the sense of becoming known and used by more speakers, but often, though not always, also by being used in a higher number of communicative situations, i.e., by gaining a wider field of application. As the example of English you shows, this may lead to the disappearance of the old second person singular pronoun from language usage. But subsequent to this development, English you became a universal pronoun of address appropriate for any situation and hence corresponding to the universal thou (thee) before the differentiation of pronominal address (neglecting for the moment traces of thou in dialects, archaic usage, in religious usage, and group varieties such as the Quakers'). When Spanish vos, however, displaced the old tú, a new polite variant, usted, was already existing, so that vos never gained the universal applicability of Latin tu before the introduction of vos as a polite pronoun. This development, as well as many others in different languages, show that a polite expression can retain its polite meaning only as a part of the system. You is polite only as long as it is opposed to thou. When thou loses frequency, the polite connotation of you is worn out to the same extent. In this respect there is direct interdependence between the use of an expression and its degree of politeness (its use being interdependent with that of other expressions designating the collocutor). A similar thing

60 Aspects of address theory happens to euphemisms and tabooed words: The degree of avoidance (circumlocution) encoded in a certain expression wears out at the same rate as the tabooed expression goes out of use (cf. Laude-Cirtautas 1976:173f, Schubert 1984e:26f). This description only seems to contradict Altmann's and RiSka's observation (1966:3) that there are politeness expressions which have a polite meaning although a non-polite equivalent is missing. German Herr had been mentioned as an example above. A word like Herr, too, is an expression of politeness only as long as it participates in a system together with other variants. In the case of Herr, another variant is the non-use of Herr. There are male persons, e.g., children, who are not addressed as Herr in German. The fact that Herr, on the other hand, has a wide range of application leads to a rather high degree of fading. The case of English you is different. There is n o collocutor who cannot be addressed with you (as a bound form), so that you has not preserved any trace of its former politeness. The more an expression wears out, the more the probability increases of its acquiring the meaning which should actually only be alluded to. Typical examples of this are nouns and adjectives used in indirect address. Indirect address occurs in many languages, and sometimes these nominal bound forms are pronominalized in the course of time. Polish pan/pani 'Mr/Mrs' as used in indirect address are already on their way t o becoming pronominalized, especially when used with a second person singular verb (nonstandard). Dutch U (< Uwe Edèlheìd 'your nobility', cf. Kuijper 1972), Spanish usted (< vuestra merced ' y ° u r grace', cf. Diez 1877:59; for a different view cf. Krotkoff 1963), or Rumanian dumneata (< domnia-ta 'your lordship', cf. Seidel-Slotty 1942:53) can be regarded as completely pronominalized. Pronominalization of forms which were introduced in order to avoid the pronoun of address is a typical case of wearing out. Silverberg (1940:514) even presumes that, in the evolution of human language, the pronoun came into being as a part of an avoidance process, replacing the tabooed name as a substitute. If the cause for avoiding a certain expression continues to exist after the substitute is worn out, the necessity arises to replace the substitute, now too direct itself, with a new term of avoidance. Such a repetition of the avoidance and substitution process can indeed be observed, especially with pronouns of address. One ex-

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert)

61

ample is found in the evolution from Latin to Spanish: In Latin, vos is introduced as a polite pronoun for single addressees; in Spanish, the polite connotation of vos fades away, so that vos is displaced by indirect address (later pronominalized as usted) in some varieties, while it in turn displaces tú in other varieties, which also introduce usted (voseo). Another example is Dutch. The original pronoun of address is doe, cognate to German du. Then the second person plural pronoun gij is supplemented as a polite singular pronoun and is later replaced by jij (except in Flanders). Similar to the voseo-varieties of Spanish, jij then replaces doe (Hake 1915, Kloeke 1926), while indirect address with Uwe Edelheid is used as a new form of politeness (Kloeke 1947). This form is pronominalized to U. Although indirect address could at first be directed to one as well as to several addressees, a secondary plural was used later when referring to several persons: Ulieden. In some instances, even this form was employed as a polite singular pronoun again.

2.3.3 Politeness in contrast The question in the introductory paragraph of this section - which language is most polite? — shall now be reconsidered in the light of the above reflections. (1) If politeness is defined in terms of adequacy (definition 1), then all languages are equally polite, since they all have forms of address (or other linguistic means) at their disposal, which according to their rules of application are adequate in different situations. Any speaker of a language has the opportunity to adhere to the rules and to choose those forms which best suit his/her relationship to the addressee. Internal rules in any language determine what is considered adequate,16 so there is adequate, hence polite behavior in any language. (2) If politeness is defined as the high position of a form in a hierarchical arrangement of variants (definition 2), then comparison of languages will reveal differences in the number of positions on

16. The rules need not be identical throughout the speech community.

62

Aspects of address theory

such a scale. The different ways of dividing the continuum produce gradations, which are more or less differentiated. Evaluating these differences, two attitudes can be taken: (a) The difference is regarded as a difference in the range of the individual forms only. A language with four polite pronouns, e.g., divides the polite end of the scale into smaller sections, while a language with only one polite pronoun covers the entire area with only one form. Since both languages, however, possess forms to cover the upper part of the scale, both languages are equally polite. (b) The second view proceeds from the number of variants occupying the upper ranks on the politeness scale of a language. The tendency to provide extra forms for high-status positions instead of including them into a domain of general politeness or even refraining from differentiation (English you) might then be regarded as polite. The tendency to make status gradation explicit by using special forms for special statuses, and to treat superiors different from inferiors or peers could be called politeness. In this sense, there would indeed be "polite" languages and "less polite" languages. Yet it seems reasonable to look for the cause of politeness or non-politeness in the social structure of a community rather than assuming a particular mental trait in the group. The impression that certain languages are particularly polite does not only result from a finer gradation of the scale, but frequently from literal, hence inadequate translation of polite expressions in a foreign language. The foreign variant is then evaluated according to the degree of respect signaled by its translation in the native address system. Still another conclusion may be derived from interlingual differences in systems of address — or in polite forms in general: One might assume that a language community lacking a certain variant which is found in another language, also lacks the degree of respect that goes with it. Not only the division of the respect scales might differ, but also the scales themselves, so that the respect scale of a language with four or five polite pronouns would reach higher than the respect scale of a language with only one pronoun. The different shapes of address systems would then correspond to different ways of experiencing interpersonal relationships. There would not only be differences in linguistic politeness,

When polite forms are impolite (F. Braun/K. Schubert)

63

but differences in the very feeling of respect. This assumption, however attractive, lies outside the area of the scientifically verifiable, since there is no method of determining people's feelings and attitudes towards others in an objective way. As to the ambiguity of the term politeness, the question arises of how the ambiguity can be solved. It may be useful to restrict the term to definition 1 (adequacy) and to invent another term for politeness of the second type (definition 2). For there can be contradictions between the two types of politeness, as soon as a "polite" form is used in a deprecatory way. Moreover, polite forms frequently express distance in addition to status, which is not as readily associated with the term. A substitute term could be respect, which should include aspects of status as well as of distance; but also distance could be used, if defined in terms of status and degrees of familiarity. — However, it seems illusive to escape the use of politeness in its second meaning, for this is common usage. We employed it like that ourselves in this section as well as in others. At least, one should be aware of the different meanings of politeness. For those who speak a foreign language, it is by no means "safe" to use the so-called polite variants in cases of doubt. Apart from scientific curiosity, second language acquisition is the field where the question of politeness plays an important part. The mastering of grammatical rules is not enough to get along and be accepted in a foreign culture. Even if native speakers are willing to tolerate a foreigner's imperfect handling of style or of forms of address, mistakes concerning expressions of politeness can still, if unconsciously, evoke misunderstandings or irritation. Mostly, native speakers do not know the other's language well enough to determine which forms of behavior are due to interference and which ones may have been intended as derogatory or ironical. Imperfect knowledge of polite behavior moreover favors prejudices and confirms certain people's convictions that Americans, Germans, Turks, or any other group are coarse, or uneducated, have no respect, and do not know how to behave. Even the opposite prejudice is easily evoked. There are peoples or regional groups known for exaggerated and artificial politeness, especially when applying the rules of their native language to a foreign one. — We are the only ones who behave properly. In spite of their enormous social relevance, linguistic politeness

64

Aspects of address theory

phenomena are often neglected in foreign language instruction. But that is exactly where it is not sufficient to label a form, e.g., a form of address, as a form of politeness and to leave it at that. Determining the position of a variant within a system is not very informative for a learner of a foreign language. Knowing that, e.g., Hungarian ön (V2) is placed higher than maga (Vj) on a respect scale, one cannot predict who is adequately addressed with ön. More attention should therefore be devoted to rules aiming at adequacy. What a learner needs to know is in which situation and to whom which form is applied, not only which variants exist, and how they can be classified. This is an essential part of communicative competence with important practical consequences.

2.4 Does the address system affect a speaker's perception of social relationships?

The preceding section dealt with the question of whether some languages can be considered more polite than others. It was suggested that a language can be regarded as more polite only if politeness is understood as the providing of special forms which refer to the upper end of a respect scale, i.e., forms marking the upper positions in a hierarchy as "upper" and opposed to the lower ones. It has also been mentioned that interlingual differences of this kind might correspond to differences in experiencing respect. From a materialistic point of view, differences in address systems are merely reflections of different social conditions — not immediate pictures of societies as they are, but of dominant ideologies, and, partly, of a society's history (archaic forms). From a Whorfian point of view, however, it should be expected that the shape of an address system has its effects on the individual speaker's consciousness and perception of interpersonal relationships. This regards not only forms of address, but linguistic "politeness" in general. Do speakers from different speech communities perceive and evaluate interpersonal relationships differently, because the systems of address in their languages are different? And do speakers feel differently about someone when they address him/her with a distant form of address than they would have in

The address system and perception of social relationships? 65 the case of intimate address? These are interesting questions with far-reaching implications, but they are most difficult t o answer. As was stated above, there seems t o be no way of measuring people's feelings about interpersonal relationships. It seems impossible to compare, say, an English speaker's feelings of respect and a Japanese speaker's respect for social superiors, and it should be equally impossible to find out what would have become of a relationship between two persons if they used different forms of address than they actually do. Anyway, it may be realistic to assume that an address system which forces all kinds of social distinctions on the speakers draws more attention to differences between members of the respective society, while a simple address system which comprises all kinds of dyads in one category makes it easier to ignore social differences. Yet, these effects are not so powerful as to prevent social change or linguistic change (e.g., in the address system). They simply favor one or the other type of consciousness. The non-differentiating pronominal address in English, you, does not necessarily make English speakers perceive each other as equal. In a language community with a more complex pronominal system like, e.g., Sinhalese (cf. Silva 1976), differences in status, power, respect, distance or whatever are more likely to be consciously experienced — but again not so much so that they cannot be overcome. Probably all human beings know superiority and inferiority, differences in power and status as well as in solidarity or distance, if only within the family. So there should be basic experiences of interpersonal relationships which are universal — to what extent, however, is doubtful. Be that as it may, forms of address are not the only means of expressing and referring to social relationships. There are other linguistic devices with the same function — terms of reference and of self-reference, honorific prefixes and other morphological markers, speech levels and lexical substitution, intonation patterns, etc. Even if none of these were employed, there is still the wide area of nonverbal behavior as a potential of signaling interpersonal relationships. One of these devices will certainly be made use of and will reflect, as well as, possibly, have its effects on, speakers' perception of relationships.

66

Aspects of address theory

2.5 Conclusions

Conspicuously enough, the ideas put forward in part 2 (theory) above, all are of a more or less criticizing and destructive character. Much space was given to the discussion of shortcomings in the theoretical approaches of others rather than presenting anything new and constructive. One reason for this is that there appear to be few, if any, universale in address behavior. Cultures, societies, languages, and address systems differ so widely that one is most likely to find exceptions to any proposed universal. Obviously one has to be content with outlining either general tendencies in given cultural areas, or interlingual correspondences with certain formal classes of address variants. 17 The factors governing address behavior are so varied and, partly, so culture-specific that it is hard to fit them into a general theoretical frame. Not all of them can easily be traced back to the more abstract notions of superiority/inferiority, distance/intimacy, formality/informality, etc. To give one single and simple example: In Jordan, the extra-linguistic feature "+/- beard" can determine whether unknown male adults receive the term /e:x (or Jeix) 'sheikh', which characterizes the addressee as a religious person. Wearing a beard — moustache will not suffice — is interpreted as a typical feature of a faithful Moslem, just as a certain way of clothing may be. Appearance certainly is not an uncommon factor in selecting address variants, especially when strangers are concerned. Still, it remains doubtful how to evaluate the use of /e:x in this situation. /e:x is employed because the addressee looks like one, and it is difficult to say what this means in terms of superiority/inferiority, distance, or similar notions. A modern, westernized Jordanian might consider a religious and traditional role, such as fe:x, inferior or backward, whereas a Jordanian with a traditional background might consider this a dignified position in society. Especially for an observer who is not a member of the respective culture, the interpretation of such an address term and the social role connected with it presents a problem. In the /e:x case, there is, in addition, no formal clue that could facilitate an evaluation,

17. An investigation of such correspondences is Head (1978).

Conclusions

67

such as a honorific plural might do. There may be address terms which simply cannot be grasped with the help of well-known general parameters such as age, status, etc. Regularities of address can reasonably be suggested only in referring to a single address system first. Only long-time observation and interlingual comparison will show if any rule can claim the status of a universal. Because of the diversity of languages and societies, however, it may well be that few actually can.

3 Methodological considerations

3.1 Interviewing informants on the basis of a questionnaire

Just like any other method, interviewing informants on the basis of a questionnaire, which was our way of collecting data, has its advantages and its disadvantages. It may be of interest here to give an account of our experience with this approach.

3.1.1 Advantages A major advantage of the interviewing method is that it can provide ample information about the functioning of an address system without requiring an extensive command of the language on the investigator's part. There is always a competent speaker, the informant, to explain and translate, if one should come across unknown or unexpected forms. Thus, most of the languages investigated in our research project were languages we had never learned to speak — a skill which would have been impossible to acquire in the time available. But a repertory of address variants represents such a small section of the entire language that it can be grasped, to a certain degree, with the help of informants. Recording of natural communication or analysis of texts, on the other hand, require much more detailed knowledge of the language itself. If in the respective language subject pronouns are not obligatory, for example, recognition of congruent verb forms, suffixes, etc., is necessary to detect the selection of an underlying pronoun of address. And if written texts are used, the trivial but nonetheless awkward necessity arises of being able to read the respective script. It goes without saying that this problem alone would have prevented us from investigating languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Tigrinya, Persian, Dari, Pashto, Kurdish, Korean, and Chinese unless we were willing to risk losing a considerable amount of time.

70

Methodological

considerations

Certainly, command of the language under investigation would always be of great help, this is not to be denied. 1 But if one wants to gather data on as many languages as possible, the question of time and economy has to be considered. Informant interviewing is economial in several respects. Firstly, it saves the time otherwise needed for learning the language, and secondly it can easily be carried out in a different country. If only informants, in our case foreign students, are at hand, there is no need to travel to the respective country to get some (if quantitatively limited) data. The data provided especially by young informants give a picture of modern address behavior. It is thus possible to obtain information on the linguistic consequences of recent social or political events, such as the revolution in Iran, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and the like. Anyone who knows how much time it takes for anything to appear in print, in literary and scientific texts alike, can imagine what an opportunity it is to observe directly current tendencies in address behavior. Using a questionnaire or, at least, a structured set of questions, provides systematic data on all the aspects one is interested in. Nondirected observation or study of literary texts, on the other hand, is not likely to provide all the data desired. To give an extreme example: it is easier to ask speakers which form, to them, is appropriate in addressing a king than to wait for them to actually address one, which may just as well never happen in their entire lives. In an interview, it is possible to control the interplay of variables systematically, while natural situations are less favorable in this respect. Recording natural instances of address, one normally gets little information on the background of the speakers. Sex and approximate age, of course, are easy to determine, but social status, education, regional origin, etc., can be difficult to guess at. Informants, however, can, and are usually willing to, give detailed information on their biography. In addition, informants can be selected according to factors such as sex, age, social, or regional background, occupation, etc., depending on what kind of groups one is interested in.

1. Labov (1970:41) speaks of a "Cumulative Paradox": "the more that is known about a language, the more we can find out."

Interviewing informants on the basis of a questionnaire

71

The informant's language competence has already been mentioned as a means of compensating for the interviewer's imperfect knowledge of the language. But the informant's intuition can do more than that. Informants can explain how they feel about a certain form of address, why they regard it as appropriate in a certain context or not, which implications it may have, etc. They can relate their observations on changes in address behavior, draw attention to forms that now are obsolete, but were in use in their grandparents' lifetime, can describe people's reactions to certain address variants, characterize instances of address behavior as typical or as exceptional, refer to forms they overheard, but do not use themselves, and point to underlying parameters which might escape the interviewer's attention. Most of our interviews did not consist of filling in forms only, but of talking and discussing, listening to anecdotes or to experiences with forms of address. Usually it was this kind of extra information that gave valuable clues and hints from which to profit in later analysis of the data. If the investigator is not familiar with a culture, talking with informants, in addition to the mere data, is exceedingly helpful. It is thus easier to get an impression of the particulars of address situations, of the atmosphere, and the way of thinking behind the data. It has often been indicated that informants' statements about their language behavior are not necessarily identical with their actual behavior. This objection is entirely justified. Address behavior, however, seems to be more accessible to an informant's awareness than other types of language behavior. Although the selection process involved and the governing factors may remain subconscious, informants are mostly capable of reporting which forms they use to their collocutors in everyday situations. Address behavior is much easier for speakers to recollect than, e.g., to give an account of their selection of phonetic variants.

3.1.2 Shortcomings As for the disadvantages of our method, they are numerous enough. The possible discrepancy of reported behavior and actual behavior has just been referred to. This factor is, in an unfavorable way, combined with a high degree of dependency on the informant.

72 Methodological considerations There is no possibility of verifying or falsifying an informant's individual data except, of course, by interviewing several other informants whose data can assign the individual results a certain degree of reliability. However, one can never be sure whether misunderstandings have been detected and excluded. It never happened to us, though, that informants deliberately gave false data or tried to mislead us in any way. Most of them were more cooperative and patient than could have been expected. Nevertheless, even the " b e s t " informants can only report what they know of their language and language behavior, i.e., what is accessible to their awareness. One cannot expect informants to make objective and scientific statements about linguistic matters. Occasionally, cases of doubt remain and must be left unsolved. Anyone who worked with informants will have noticed that there are considerable differences between individual speakers which make some of them, to the interviewer, " b e t t e r " informants than others. A good informant need not necessarily have an extensive theoretical knowledge of languages; the best informants we had were usually not students of linguistics. They were speakers who had a good intuition about their language, who liked to talk about it, who did not get bored too quickly, and who came up with lots of stories or observations of their own. To a certain extent, the qualities of one's findings are dependent on these characteristics of informants. Another problem inherent in the method of interviewing is that certain forms, including forms of address, are difficult to obtain, when normative thinking interferes. This concerns mostly nonstandard forms like regional or sociolectal variants. If informants use such address variants, they often hesitate to write them down or to have them recorded by the interviewer. Frequently informants say something like: "Actually I use . . . here, but it's not good. The correct form is . . ." and then they switch to what is known t o them as " g o o d " language. Labov ( 1 9 6 6 : 9 0 f f ) demonstrated that an informant's tendency towards standardizing increases when an increasing degree of attention is directed t o language. In an interview on forms of address, attention is not only concentrated on language in the extreme, but the forms produced are far removed from spontaneous usage, since the questions constitute a meta-level of communication. In the Jordanian interviews especially, this turned out to be a handicap. The Arabic diglossia

Interviewing informants on the basis of a questionnaire

73

is a well-known phenomenon (cf. Fischer/Jastrow 1980:20ff and many others), so no further remarks shall be added here. It may suffice to say that the Jordanian informants all had a very clear conception of what was good (= standard or classical) Arabic and what was bad (= dialectal or colloquial Arabic). Since most people do not expect linguists to be interested in " c o r r u p t " language and since they do not want to present themselves in an unfavorable light, the informants were reluctant t o produce the colloquial forms they used in everyday life. Almost automatically, they switched t o the standard and had to be constantly reminded that the forms of everyday use were the object of the investigation. This is a difficulty which will not arise when data are collected through anonymous observation. Employing this method, one can always be sure that the forms recorded are forms of actual use, and if switching to standard occurs it can be regarded as "natural" switching, caused by situational factors, not by the method of collecting the data. Generally, non-prestigious forms or stigmatized forms are not easily accessible in an interview. This also includes unpopular usage of forms which otherwise belong to the standard, e.g., the use of a Τ pronoun to an inferior, which is felt to be "not nice" and which the informant may correct for what would seem more acceptable to a foreigner. A general problem concerning questionnaires or systematized sets of questions is the very structure inherent in the complex of items. It is actually prerequisite t o have an idea about the relevant parameters in order to ask sensible questions. Otherwise the questions may not touch upon the crucial points. This means, on the one hand, that a lot of information — either culture-specific or general — is necessary before a questionnaire can be designed, and, on the other hand, that the structure of the questionnaire may push the informant towards artificial distinctions. Our questionnaire (3.4.1 below) has a rather European form, i.e., is based on experience in our own culture. So when we used the questionnaire in interviews on "exotic" languages, additions and modifications frequently turned out to be necessary. On the part of the informant, it requires a good deal of energy to resist the structure of the questionnaire and either to ignore certain distinctions suggested by it or t o make additional distinctions where there is hardly space for them. An informant who fills in forms or answers one stereotyped question after another is easily, though

74

Methodological

considerations

without intention, tempted to vary his/her answers in correspondence to the questions. Sometimes informants have the impression that you want them to give a different form for each item in the questionnaire, and, helpful as they want to be, try to supply you with them. Therefore, informants must constantly be encouraged to free themselves from the frame of the questionnaire whenever they feel it not to be appropriate. In our questionnaire, numerous persons are listed as potential collocutors, and the informant is expected to report the forms of address he/she uses to them. With this kind of listing, however, a certain danger arises to elicit terms of reference instead of terms of address. An informant sometimes falls into a routine of merely translating the terms designating the various addressees, all the more so if he/she is not conscious of the distinction between the categories of reference and address. This is especially frequent when forms of address for relatives are concerned, because with relatives — most often with those of higher generations — terms of reference and terms of address can be identical and consist of kinship terms. This is a source of misunderstandings which is introduced by the method only. Another shortcoming in interviewing informants is that there are limitations to what one can ask a native speaker. It may prove difficult, e.g., to find out whether a given pronoun of address is combined with a second person verb or a third person verb, with singular or with plural forms. Mostly, informants are not used to such a kind of grammatical analysis and, lacking an active knowledge of the language, the interviewer may be unable to form exemplifying sentences and then to ask the informant which one would be used. If a certain bound form of address can be combined with different verb forms expressing different degrees of respect, an informant may fail to mention this detail and the unsuspecting interviewer may fail to ask about it, so that finer distinctions are easily neglected. And even if they are recognized, an informant may be unable to tell how he/she uses these distinctions. The same occurs, e.g., when nominal forms of address can be used both in the nominative and in the vocative case (i.e., morphologically marked for vocative) and when the informant is supposed to explain according to which rule nominative vs. vocative forms are selected, or whether there is such a rule at all. This is information which informants cannot be expected to give and

Interviewing informants on the basis of a questionnaire

75

which are hardly obtainable by means of an interview. As far as our own questionnaire is concerned, one disadvantage turned out to be inherent in the rigid distinction between "pronouns" and "modes of address". As can be seen in 3.4.1, all data are expected to be classified into either of these categories. But there are types of bound forms which cannot be treated properly in terms of this distinction. This regards the category of indirect address, i.e., nominal forms used like pronouns and syntactically embedded in the sentence (cf. 2.0). If such a form of address is listed under "modes", on the one hand, it looks like a free form of address and its special characteristics are ignored. If it is listed under "pronouns", on the other hand, this categorization does not fit, either, since such a variant is not a pronoun and may have special connotations exactly because it is unusual for a nominal form to be used like a pronoun. A parallel case is the use of pronouns as free forms (e.g. You, can you tell me . . .) which is not provided for in our questionnaire. The two categories should rather be called "free" vs. "bound forms of address", or maybe a third column could be provided for cases of indirect address. Speaking of free and bound forms would also eliminate the problem of determining which forms should be considered pronouns and which ones nouns, since there is no clear-cut distinction, but rather a gradual one. On the whole, our questionnaire has turned out to be a helpful basis for interviewing informants - but no more than that. Our initial hope that copies of the questionnaire could be sent to foreign universities or other cooperating institutions, could be distributed and filled out there and then returned to us, thus providing a multitude of data in a minimum of time was not fulfilled. There are far too many sources of misunderstanding — confusion of reference and address being only the most frequent one —, too much information outside the questionnaire items get lost, and the informant left alone with such a pile of paper too soon gets bored or frustrated and leaves blank all the questions that bother him/ her one way or other. The method of interviewing informants has proved to be an economical means of collecting preliminary data on address systems of numerous languages within a restricted frame of time and with a restricted command of the languages in question. The results obtained, however, remain to a certain degree superficial in that

76

Methodological

considerations

the finer details of an address system can easily escape the interviewer's attention or may be impossible to elicit from informants. The application of the method is restricted, moreover, in that it works with certain groups of informants only, i.e., with informants who have had some linguistic education: Firstly, they must at least be bilingual and have a language in common with the interviewer. Secondly, they should be used to communicating about language, so that they report the better about the habits of their own language community. It is particularly fortunate if they have come into contact with various foreign languages and know that there may be interlingual differences at points which other native speakers do not consider worth mentioning. Our method can thus be regarded as a useful approach to all kinds of address systems. Without extensive knowledge of the language, however, it cannot be more than an approach, while other methods, which presuppose such knowledge, e.g., observation of natural communication or analysis of texts, can provide more detailed information.

3.2 Applying the questionnaire in investigating systems of address: two examples

This section contains two reports on informant interviews concerning forms of address in (1) Portuguese and (2) Georgian. They are presented here to illustrate the more practical part of our work: the collection of data in interviews with native speakers, based on the questionnaire, and the summarizing of results in reports of limited length. The informants always were the main source of data, but secondary sources such as grammars, dictionaries and previously published material were consulted so as to obtain some background information or to get an impression of the diachronic development. They are explicitly referred to in the text. The second report (3.2.2) is entirely Klaus Schubert's work, although it was translated and somewhat shortened for the present purposes. Hence, the two samples reflect to a certain degree our individual interests and approaches. These two reports were chosen

Investigating systems of address: two examples

77

from our stock because they are typical products of our practical work. They had not originally been prepared for the present volume, and they will show what can or cannot be achieved within our methodological framework.

3.2.1 Forms of address in Portuguese 3.2.1.0

Object and procedure of the

investigation

The present investigation deals with forms of address in Portuguese as spoken in Portugal. Brazilian Portuguese forms have been excluded, since they constitute an address system of their own, which markedly differs from the European one.2 Apart from the literature cited, I would like to mention KilburyMeißper (1982), which became accessible to me only after this investigation had been finished. Two Portuguese women, native speakers, served as informants. The first one, "A", was 25 years old at the time of the interview. She had been living in Germany for eight years then and had taken a master's degree in linguistics. Her home town was Porto, one of the largest cities in Portugal. Her parents had a university education, and her family background apparently was one of higher social status. Her long absence from Portugal need not have damaged her native address behavior, since A used to spend holidays with her family at home. The second informant, "B", was. 23 years old and her home town was Porto, too. At the time of the interview she had been living in Germany for two years and was a student of mathematics. Her family seems to have been of lower social standing than A's family. It goes without saying that two informants who, in addition, have many characteristics in common, can never give a picture of Portuguese address behavior in general. However, they can give access to at least part of the Portuguese repertory of forms of address, and their use of these forms may demonstrate some of 2. In Brazilian Portuguese, e.g., the pronoun você(W in European Portuguese) has largely displaced tu and acquired the status of a Τ pronoun (Azevedo 1981, Cuesta/Luz 1961 :440442).

78 Methodological considerations the underlying factors. Moreover, their data can easily be compared, exactly because the informants have much in common regarding their social background. Apart from informants A and B, older data from an interview with a 45-year-old Portuguese worker were available. They cannot be systematically included, however, because the interview was carried out by a different interviewer and with a different version of the questionnaire, but they will now and then be referred to (informant "C") as additional information on certain aspects of address behavior. 3.2.1.1

The evolution of the Portuguese system of bound

forms

The Portuguese address system, especially the system of bound forms, is a rather complex one. The following sections will summarize how the present state of the system came into being. (1) Just as in Latin, the original Portuguese V pronoun was formed by pluralizing the second person pronoun when speaking to a single addressee of high status: Τ - sg. tu, pl. vós; V - vós. (2) After its use had been considerably extended, the V pronoun vós lost its connotation of respect - a frequent phenomenon (cf. 2.3.2.7) - so that new modes of expressing respect had to be found. This gap was filled by using (abstract) nouns, which replaced pronouns of address and were combined with third person verbs (= indirect address, cf. 2.0). The addressee was called, e.g., Vossa Mercè 'your grace', and this noun phrase was embedded into a third person construction. The roots of indirect address, subsequently abbreviated as "IA", and abstract noun usage go back to the Latin address system as is stated in Camara (1972:81): One did not address the Emperor of Rome as Uos but as Uestra Maiestas 'Your Majesty', and when the latter was the subject of a verb, the verb was put into the third person singular.

Now a threefold distinction could be made in Portuguese when addressing a single collocutor: tu (intimate); vós (V pronoun, frequency decreasing); IA with abstract nouns (respectful).

Investigating systems of address: two examples

79

(3) The aforementioned Vossa Mercè become more and more common as the nominal head of the indirect construction and was phonetically reduced in the course of time: Vossa Mercè > Vossemecê > Você. The short form voce become a new V pronoun and displaced the older vós: tu (intimate); você (V pronoun); ΙΑ (most respectful). (4) Eventually, the old pronoun vós went entirely out of use, even in its function as plural T, and the plural of voce, voces, was extended to take over this function as well: Τ — sg. tu, pl. vocês\ V - sg. você, pl. vocês; ΙΑ. (5) After você had been established as a V pronoun, it underwent the same fate as the old vós: Its application was extended more and more, until it was finally used downwards, i.e., to inferiors, and the respectful connotation was lost. For addressing superiors, nominal forms in a IA construction had to be used, e.g., Vossa Excelência 'your excellency' or simply o senhor 'the lord, master' and the like. Since IA implied the use of a third person verb, which thus became increasingly frequent, a third person verb alone could finally serve as a respectful form of address. This is, however, less formal than the full IA construction with an explicit nominal form, cf. Krenn/Mendes (1971:72): Häufig wiederholtes V.Ex.a, o senhor, o meu amigo, o sr. doutor o.a. hebt die Anredeperson oder das Verhältnis zu ihr stärker hervor, unterstreicht die Rangunterschiede, während die verbale Anrede . . . die Zwanglosigkeit des Gesprächs und die Gleichgestelltheit seiner Partner zum Ausdruck bringt.

"Verbal address" thus became an intermediate form; the thirdperson pronoun, however, was not used as a V pronoun, though this might have been another consequence of IA frequency. Apparently there were a few instances of third-person pronoun used as a pronoun of address, but they were of minor importance, cf. Rein (1961:23, note): Die eigentümliche Ausdrucksweise bei Heitor Pinto [third-person pronoun ele in addressl stammt aus einer Zeit, wo fur die höfliche Anrede noch die 2. Person Plur. diente . . . , aber offenbar auch schon die 3. Person Sing, benutzt wurde. Es scheint, daß die Anrede durch das Pronomen "ele" eine vereinzelte Sonderform ist, die bald zugunsten der sonst üblichen Anreden unterging.

80

Methodological considerations

(6) In the modern standard Portuguese system of bound forms of address, the following differentiations are found: -

tu (Τ pronoun) 3 você (V pronoun; less intimate, sometimes condescending) third-person verb without subject 4 (neutral-distant) IA (respectful-distant) a) with definite article + kinship term b) with definite article + first name c) with o senhor/a senhora d)

( - I A with Vossa Excelência) Some remarks remain to be added: The Portuguese address system presents differentations and variations which often have no equivalent in other languages, e.g., German or English. But even native speakers sometimes feel uncertain which variant to select in a given dyad. In this case, φ is always a handy solution. Since all bound forms, except tu, are combined with a third-person verb, the purely verbal address is a distant form which does not demand the selection of a further pronominal or nominal term for the addressee. In the IA construction there are infinite variations, which are produced by variation of the noun. The selection of nominal forms depends, among other things, on the domain to which the address act is applied (e.g., family, job, etc.). A final and closed list of nominal variants for IA can hardly be set up at all. The variant Vossa Excelência was written in brackets, because it is going out of use. It is still mentioned in many grammars, as well as in Svennung (1958:98): In Portugal ist heute die übliche höfliche Anrede - etwa d. 'Sie' entsprechend - Vossa Excelência ! ...

But its frequency has meanwhile so much decreased that it is only a minor variant in the system. 3. The classifications in brackets are superficial labels only. 4. Subsequently written as "φ" (= avoidance of nominal and pronominal form).

Investigating systems of address: two examples

81

Krenn/Mendes (1971:73) describe the receivers of Vossa Excelência as follows: Sie [= the form V.E. ] kommt gewöhnlich nur bestimmten Berufsgruppen und sozialen Ständen zu, wie z.B. Ministern, Professoren, Ärzten, Doktoren, Botschaftern usw.

And even such persons need no longer be addressed with Vossa Excelência. Informant A could not recall a single situation where she had used this form, except perhaps in writing. She reported, however, that her brother, a physician, was sometimes addressed with Vossa Excelência by rural speakers. In urban colloquial language this form does not seem to play a decisive part any longer. In writing, though, it is still used, especially in business letters. As was mentioned above, the old pronoun vós disappeared even in its function as Τ plural. The resulting gap in the pronominal system triggered a number of changes in the bound forms for several addressees: (1) vocês was substituted as Τ plural, Τ

V

sg.

tu

você

pi.

—